Monday, August 19, 2013

The Legacy

My niece is five-and-a-half years old. Her brother is barely three.

She speaks with a clarity well beyond the capabilities of most eight-year-olds. He! speaks! like! this! with! exclamation! points!

She hates school. He hates going to school, and then refuses to come back home in the evening.

My niece has to sleep on my bed when she visits us, and snuggles up to me in her sleep. She follows me around all the time, and is thoroughly convinced of my awesomeness. She's not all that fond of my husband, and has frequently expressed her resentment about how he took me away. In fact, she once told a friend of mine that my husband beats me up (and that she has seen him do this).

My nephew hardly ever speaks to me. He prefers the company of his Gran or the dog or the cat or the idiot box to mine. But if I am in the bathroom for more than two minutes, he starts banging on the door, calling my name, starts, and promptly ignores me when I come out.

My niece wants to be a doctor when she grows up. She's  not old enough to know any better, but she's been saying that from the time she could talk. She knows where her heart is, and can listen to it with my stethoscope.

One of the nephews's first words were 'plane! plane! plane!' and he wants to be a 'pilot-tu!' when he grows up. He has promised to fly his Gran around the world once he achieves his life's dream. And the other day, when she casually asked him when he's going to become a pilot and take her on the world tour, he replied 'dottor ayittu!' (after becoming a dottor!).

Kids!

A long time ago

2 comments:

Sunil J said...

It has been a while. :-)

tys said...

hows the married doctor life going on?