Checkmate

Two things happened this week, enough to make me wake up from blogging slumber !

The first - thanks to resourceful bureaucrat friends, I managed to catch CWG Athletics and Badminton. While in the car en route to a friend's office, Ruhi was struggling with the math of how the 5 tickets that we had were going to be utilised. I told her A, you and me make 3 girls and there are 2 boys going with us. She immediately replied " But you are not a girl Mamma" .

I decided to be funny " Oops Ruhi, but of course ! So there are 3 boys including me and 2 girls ". She looked at me earnestly and asked " are you serious ?"

"Of course Ruhi, didnt you know I am a man ?"

Ruhi looked confused and astonished. In my heart I was confused and astonished myself !

So I look like an Android to her ? How can a nearly 9 year old not establish human anatomy ? Was she being funny as well ? Unfortunately we arrived at our destination and the conversation was forgotten.

2 days later in our lazy hour at night, I reminded her of that conversation and asked if she genuinely thought I was a man.

She looked embarrassed "but mamma you sounded so sure.....I thought maybe you are a man with long hair....for a minute I thought you may be wearing a wig stuck with glue..."

I was roaring with laughter. She looked more embarrassed and sweetly said " but you could be a man..."

The second - after we finished laughing ourselves silly about the man thing, she said " now please don't write all this on your blog".

I cannot explain how I felt at that moment. I was shocked and felt so cheated that my privacy had been invaded upon by my little baby. My ears burning in indignation I felt a surge of concern - what had she read ? what could she have understood ? what about all my angst about mixed parentage. Pretending to sound casual I asked " Have you seen my blog ? Where ? " .

She had gone to spend a night at my brother's house and it seems my nephew googled her name and they landed at my blog !! He is 10 years old.

She saw the pic where Rayyan was doodling on my leg and she read the accompanying post where I had said that Ruhi was very jealous of his talent (to draw).

My heart broke when I saw her bravely trying to fight tears as she told me " I was very angry with you mamma".

She had not called me during that trip as she usually does. She had also said nothing for about a week that she had been back home. It was disturbing.

I instinctively picked up my laptop and took her through my blog. I showed her tens of posts about her, her pics on my blog. Read out some post to her. She was very pleased and said "not sad anymore, I never saw all this". We talked some more and she fell asleep.

Am stunned to say the least. I had not anticipated she would get here, she is not yet nine !! Just proves how little I know and how ill prepared I am for the future. I am also worried about internet access and what lies in store...

However the thought that bothers me the most is that its not going to be my personal blog anymore, but the blog of the mother of my children.