Little things we took for granted – 2

Today I had to go collect something from someone in our suburb. I asked the girls if anyone wants to go for a drive with me. MsA, being the teenager with selective hearing didn’t hear or respond. Ms An on the other hand, was all excited and agreed straightaway.

She was so excited to go out in a car and made it a point to tell me. She asked if I had a spare set of sunglasses in the car like before and I said, yes and gave her the spare set. She put them on and sat up straight, looking out the window.

As we reached the main road, she let out a big sigh and said, “Oh! Mumma , I have missed this. This sitting in the car and relaxing, looking out the window and chatting.” It instantly broke my heart and turned it into mush!

All through out the drive, she kept reminiscing about random little incidents from before , when we were in the car going somewhere. After we collected the package, I asked her, “where shall we go next ?” Her face fell, “ Nowhere.. we can’t go anywhere, we need to go home.” I suggested taking a longer way home and that cheered her up.

I don’t know how we got to the topic of food, but I asked her about her favourite takeaway place and she replied with the name of our local Indian restaurant. I asked her why? Usually SP would suggest going there and both A & An would roll their eyes. Her response completely blew me over. She said , “ Because it gives me happy feelings, because I remember all the times we went there when everything was ok and we could still go sit and the restaurants and see our friends.”

She nailed it, didn’t she? Summed up everything in that little statement. I think it hit me more, because she is still my little girl , in my head, at least – she tells me very clearly, I am not a baby.And she is not.. she is all worldly and wise. But it breaks my heart that our children have had to grow up so quickly in this pandemic.

We came home and she was out playing . She saw our neighbor S and ran up to her and said, “Guess what ? I did something awesome today! I went for a drive in the car!” Both S and I said almost at the same time, “ we never thought going somewhere in a car would ever be such an exciting experience .”

Oh.. the things we took for granted… I leave you with a pic of my precious, enjoying the sunshine.