They say every mother is a magician of sorts. It’s true to some extent but if there was ever a time I needed a magic wand that works real magic, it is just about now. Kwezi may be excited about being on the bus but she and I are definitely not happy about the idea of waking up at 5am every morning.
There is something really ‘sweet’ about morning sleep whether you are a child or an adult and it really breaks my heart when I have to wake my four-year-old up at that ungodly hour. There are times, depending on whether I have some money to spare, when I let her sleep in and I hire a cab for her to go to school at about eight giving her an opportunity to enjoy her morning sleep but there are others, which unfortunately are many, where I begrudgingly have to wake her up. I have seen the look that she has when she pleads; "Mummy, I want to sleep” and my heart breaks even more when I tell her, "Sweetheart, the bus is going to leave you”.
The beauty about children is that they adjust. While I have to endure mornings where she is crying about everything because she would rather be in bed, there are many others where everything is so upbeat because she is excited. She will sing, laugh and run around at 5am like it is midday.
One of the most difficult things a parent has to endure sometimes is the inability to provide their child with whatever they need or wish for. It is the mystery of raising a child. It is not a bed of roses but it has to be done. I miss spending some time with my child when she comes from school. Previously, and that is before we moved to our new home, she would be awake in the evenings, playing around and not that keen about going to school. Sometimes we would even watch a movie together. Today, she enters the gate very excited and really hungry and she eats whatever is available, by the time she is getting a bath and wearing her pyjamas, she is already informing us how she really needs to sleep. I had never seen someone who blacks out within seconds of entering bed and the next day, its back to the same routine.
If I had a magic wand, Kwezi would be going to school at 9am and returning at 1pm but I don’t. She has to endure stuff that adults do until another solution comes up. In the meantime, she and I have no solution but to remain strong. We shall overcome. We always do.
editor@newtimesrwanda.com