“Ooh! I forgot to give mom kisses…”
Ammu runs to me and smothers me with kisses all over my face. When I pause to catch my breath, she removes my glasses and attacks me again until I am bent over, wheezing with laughter and desperately trying not to pee.
“Screw off” Ammu grumbles when I try to get her out of bed and into the shower after a day of lying in her own feverish sweat. I walk out the door in a haze of hurt and anger, flipping a finger into the Universe as I do.
Pattu envelops me in a hug from the back first thing in the morning most days. She slurps down the pasta I make and lets out a satisfied sigh that has me practically levitating.
“You never let me join band or chorus or string like you permit Laddu…” Her voice is plaintive and rising with every additional injustice she dregs up from memory pitting her ten year old self with now ten year old Laddu. I try to argue, telling her that the pandemic was a different time in which we navigated their end of elementary school and a good part of middle school. My voice resounds in an empty space, my twins having retired to their rooms long before I am even cognizant of it.
Sophomore year of high school somehow makes it feel like the time we have as a family unit of five is drawing to a close. Every holiday, every break comes with a tag that says only two more of these left.
2024 has sped past, our family like the yin and yang wheel drawing close, spinning away and coming back closer with force. This dance is picking up speed. We draw apart with greater gaps and come together in suffocating closeness that makes me dread for the time when the two pieces may splinter instead of slowing down and coming back into formation.
For now though, I am trying to stay in the moment and hold on to the moments when the kids are close, hugging, kissing and, sharing jokes I can barely keep up with. 2025 will be a big year. One in which my girls will learn to drive. One in which I will get larger and larger previews of their adult selves with periodic retreats into a childish frame. The key lies somewhere in celebrating the previews knowing that they are still here, still home, still my babies.
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