The Joy of Out There

As a child, I never had company outside of my siblings, to play with. I would look at my cousins and wish we lived in an estate in the city where there are lots of other kids to play with. My sister and I even dreamt that when we grew up, we would live in an estate like South C or South B and our children would play play and never lack company.

Well we grew up. And adulthood made me appreciate the up bringing we had, with a lot of space for adventure and growth devoid of the citys’ problems like traffic, concrete heat, impossible dust and the pollution alongside garbage and all that.

We don’t live in the same place my sister and I, I have children she doesn’t. Our outlooks on life are as different and black is to white. But I do live in an estate, where my children now play with other children. Something that as a child I hungered so much for. Weird thing is when we moved into an estate, we were kept away from other kids. I fought really hard for any time I had to socialize outside of school. Even that little was well… awkward.

As a parent now I understand the fears my parents must have had. What kind of people will the children have to interact with, do they have the kind of values we want instilled in the children. As a parent I can control the home environment and anywhere I am at but out there… who knows what the children are exposed to? On the other hand, It is important to socialize and understand social plays and nuances from a young age.

I must admit, I do not get social nuances that easily, and I really do respect people who have the courage to point out to me where I missed out on something. That maybe partly from being heavily sheltered from the world as a kid and also possibly from my character. I am a dreamer, I see things as I want them to be rather that what they really are. Its my default setting. The wholes of trouble I am dealing with out of that are so epic that sometimes I consider hiding for the rest of my life to avoid them.

I don’t want my young men to grow up in a social bubble. I let them out to play with others. The Sudanese kids (surprisingly well-mannered and respectful children, nil for mum for being overly judgemental!!), the horribly mannered boys from up the corner (my gosh I pity their mother… I beat them into following my rules while in my compound, they don’t come often), the little arab kids who have the most thought provoking questions…. Name it, they come into my house for water or juice or whatever there is to fuel their play and I love it!

Of course when the parents hear I let the children out to play in the neighborhood responded with resigned anger (you can hear the unsaid words: gosh this girl just doesn’t do things the way they should be done properly). I have since been bombarded with horror stories of children being stolen or abused in the neighborhood. I do not refute that these things happen... hell, the young mums in my hood chatted about it and how to protect each other’s children… but we cannot lock up our children and expect them to grow into cultured social adults. It a calculated risk with as many stop gap measures as possible.

But the crux of this post? I just fill up with joy when I see my children out there playing and running around to their hearts content and yes I’m the kind of mum who considers a good day marked by how dirty the clothes are, how hungry the kids are and how many little feet pitter pattered themselves into a holy mess in the living room…. Yup, that’s a good day. (until I think of having to clean up!)

Little Rays of Sunshine on A Cloudy Day

I haven’t written here for a long while!! That is not for a lack of stories but rather a lack of time. But I do miss my ‘mamamagic’ space. Being a mummy is still a magical journey that I love to share.


Updates

Both little men are walking now! Or should I say running and talking. The stories in this house are now never ending. Mostly funny stories, sometimes stories that you wish you could erase and they came out in the wrong place. Like a few weeks ago one of our relatives was rushed to hospital, I think little man put 2 and 2 together and decided to fill in the rest of the story himself. Weeks later little man goes to his aunty like, ‘Aunteeeeeee, uncle is a bad boy! Uncle beat you and you stayed in hospital? Uncle is a very bad boy…’


Yes I think my bladder almost released at that point because where would a little guy just under years old get that? And express himself so clearly! On the other hand, my baby is so confident and well spoken! My heart swells with pride!


There are many similar stories, they are almost weekly now. Including taking the mouse from the cat and showing it off to all and sundry, gosh you should have seen how their nanny ran, I’ve never seen her move like that!


Jumper on the other hand. Well, he jumps, all day, every day. He eats and jumps and his stories tend to come in a staccato that matches his jumping, ‘Mummy. Daddy. Go. Work. Now. Daddy. Stuck. In. daafik.’it’s a noisy playful house and really, nothing fills me up with joy like working in my workspace while hearing these lively voices play and shout out their stories! Which we can now understand!



Validation

This post is really about validation and encouragement. Life’s been really hard lately and we haven’t been able to treat the boys the way we used to or even want to. So we’ve been cracking under the pressure to keep the family afloat. I’ve been out there hustling like crazy to get a few shillings to the table sometimes clients pay, most times after you’ve done something decent, they decide either that’s not what they wanted or that is not work worth paying for… aki this life… God is seeing you people! Then another time I had 200 shillings between me and poverty… cops took it and I looked that cop in the eye and told him, his greed has denied 2 children their breakfast. Which it had… but well, that’s whats up. Life eh? But I have a God and so far the kids have always had something to eat.


So when that’s the daily hum drum of life, sometimes I hate myself for not being a good enough mum because despite the cold weather I couldn’t afford to buy my little man a fleece jacket, or replace the broken heater, or make him nice treats for school because we can’t afford to fix the oven. The killer for me is that now I’m away so much hustling that on top of the nice things we can’t do for them, mummy isn’t around as often. So when you get home with such clouds over your head and the children rush out to hug you hello, lead you to a seat or the couch and offer to get you water (despite the fact that they are too small to handle the water jug without breaking it…) I feel lifted, motivated, encouraged that my babies aren’t looking at me badly.


But the one that has given me life for days is when their cousins asked them to stay over for 2 or 3 days and the boys, both of them said, no ‘I want to stay with my mummy..!’ That brought tears to my eyes. That despite all the hardness we are going through home is best for them, even when mummy only has 1 or 2 hours a day with them, even if mummy doesn’t make them yummy muffins and smoothies anymore, even if they only have a few broken toys… they still would rather be at home with mummy.


People ask me, what is it like being a mum? Well, I think this post puts it very clearly. There will always be someone who believes that you are the best despite the odds. There will always be someone who motivates you to be that much better simply by being sweet.





Meanwhile, if anyone is looking for a digital online marketer or online digital planner, or content person with a background in journalism and a pretty decent track record as an all-round communications person. Send me a buzz, jumper needs to go to school and right now I don’t even know if they will have milk next week!

Hold Up! What The Huh!?

Some months ago I started noticing some weird things among my age-mates. This may have been noticed by those older than us much earlier but I think my eyes opened fairly recently. The concept of value and responsibility seems to be a conversational concept, and idea or philosophy to be floated around in company just to show how ‘learned’ we are. Many of us however do not seem to actually understand the day to day applicable meaning of these words.

See, for a long time I did not believe in the hoola-baloo around weddings and much less the whole marriage thing. What used to happen is that we go for all these seemingly joyous meetings and ceremonies that lead to the big day then one month, 5 months, 10 months, 1 year, 3 years max there is silence ice and talk of moving on. I heard of a marriage that lasted less than a month in this here Kenya, Nairobi even. And we think it’s only Kim Kardashian and the like who pull such stunts.

We are 28, 29, 30 and I dare say 35 year olds running around town with childish ideas of what life is about. Ho now does a man with children by more than one women, one possibly being an ex-wife who couldn’t live with an overgrown child still find that a conversation with peers about how they romped around Eldoret over the weekend is the highlight of the week! And if you corner the guy and remind him of his paternal responsibility, he might just share his strategy to spend everything he can on himself so that those mean, nasty baby mamas do not see a cent from him. True story.

This is not a man bashing post. There are women, my riika if you may, who all they aim for is to be married upper middle class. First the wedding needs to be of the standard, and must impress all the girls. Then they must live in an apartment in Kilimani, Westy or if things are hard maybe south C. Once the ring is on it and the child has been produced, it’s a competition to see who can Instagram their baby the most in the cutest outfits at all the right places… until you get to the other side of the lens and hear  ‘aki huyu mtoto husumbuuua.’ As the child is put to a corner in the latest fashion stroller as the girls have their wine. This lady might hold down a good job and her money is hers. To spend on looking good and being seen at the ‘right’ places, doing the ‘right’ things.

So I take a step back and mourn for all the things these overgrown children are destroying, I mourn for the old tired and lonely people who just might discover in their 60’s or 70’s that time cannot undo itself. I mourn for a generation that will never know what they are missing out on until they can do nothing about it but get lost in their own sorrow alone.

Real wealth that carries is not in property and fat accounts but in people, the people around you and the relationships we nurture. Relationships are hard and not always about smiles and laughs, there are tears there are fights… but the end goal is worth it.

At the end of the day, parents will try, and they will tire and their time will pass, friends, should there be principled people in your circle, will try until your antics will be too embarrassing for them to associate with you and they will quietly and surely melt away (as you nurse your drink in Malindi begrudging the haters you thought were friends), you will have destroyed the relationships you tried to call family and then what. Like I told someone a few years ago, the cars and the big houses and rental property will not nurse you when you are ill, will not be your companions when age slows you down and will definitely not bury you. So, I’m I talking to you?