Slice of Life Tuesday #1

After reading many posts from ‘Two Writing Teachers’ and missing to write something for the Slice of Life post always, I am finally going to commemorate today with my first post😊

Two Writing Teachers run the Slice of Life tag ever Tuesday, where readers and writers are encouraged to write and share something about their life or day. You can check out the tag here.

The unconditional love of a child

We have a festival today in India, celebrated in the Northern states, called Sankranti. Don’t ask me the religious details but I know that people fly kites on this day. My two and a half year old had made a small kite for herself with the help of her teachers at playschool yesterday. And she insisted on wearing her best dress and get her hair done for the ‘kite flying’ festival at school today. Then, she took her favourite stuff toy in one hand and her kite in the other hand and marched off with me to get into the Uber and go to playschool.

As we descended down the stairs, she met the building guard. I usually don’t even make eye contact or if I do, I just nod and smile. She marched on to him and said, “look! I got a kite! And look! I got my butterfly dress! Look! I so pwetty! I’m going to playschool to fly my kite today.” She said and beamed with her sweet smile. The guard didn’t know much of English but his face transformed into a huge smile and he gently patted her on the head.

We got into our Uber and when we reached the playschool, she climbs out of her seat at the back and goes very close to the driver in the front, touches him on the shoulder so that she has his complete attention and says, “shankyouu for dwopping me a playschool! Look I got my kite! I’m going to fly it. I got my pwincess butterfly dress. See you later!” Again, with a huge smile. The driver, who just seconds before had a serious look on his face, looked surprised for a second and then immediately smiled at her and said, “bye princess“, with a kind smile.

When I get into an Uber, I just say hi or hello and quickly plug in my earphones to listen to my audiobook and we ride in silence. I do say thank you in the end, but without a backward glance.

However, my daughter had probably given a chunk of her unconditional love to two strangers in the span of 30 minutes in the morning. She made them smile when they weren’t expecting it and no one had to tell her to be kind either. That’s how lovely children are.

As I continued my journey in silence, I wondered if I should take a leaf out of her book and talk to everyone like her or if I should just keep to myself, lest people think this 36 year old has gone mad all of a sudden? 😊😉