At 1 pm on today’s sunny afternoon, the day so far had been smooth and having sat with my son for the last 3 hours, I thought that I should now get on with the household chores and started doing the dishes first. After all, the little one seemed so busy playing with his toys that he didn’t even look at me and I thought it was time to start tackling one chore after another.
Halfway through, I turned around and saw him happily pour out a mug of water on his bicycle parked right behind me! Now, let us not get into what a bicycle would do inside a kitchen. You get used to having bicycles, scooter, dolls, teddy bears, toy cars and, well, let’s say, everything other than vessels and provisions in your kitchen when you have two busy kids having way too many toys to be accommodated in a single room and run around all through the house, playing and, obviously, scattering it wherever they feel like.
Getting back to the wet cycle and the wet floor all the way from the bathroom to the cycle, my first intention was to shout out my son’s name and ask him to stop doing it. But, the mindful-me remembered on time that I shouldn’t raise my voice and instead told my son that he should not do it and also asked him just why didn’t he bring the mug of water from the bathroom inside the kitchen and instead chose to bring it all the way from the bedroom thereby leaving behind a trail of slippery floor. I told him that we will pour the next mug together and asked him to play with his toys till I finished washing the vessels. This tactic, thankfully, worked.
When I was finally done wiping the floor and putting the wet doormat for washing, I took a clean doormat from the basket on a trolley holding all the clean doormats and let out a shriek! A cockroach inside the basket! I hadn’t seen even a single cockroach inside my house in the last one month and was feeling happy. All happiness went away and I started thinking about how to drive away the cockroach. I am dead scared of cockroaches. So, go ahead and have a good laugh at how I let a tiny creature get me so scared.
Struck by a brain wave, I moved the trolley out of the house and started taking one doormat after another carefully. That’s when I saw that there were, not one, but two cockroaches! And then, a lizard too jumped out! Cursing and crying, I completely cleared the basket, saw one more inside and pushed the basket away from my house. Wearing my slippers, I upturned it several times with my foot, but the creatures refused to move away. Almost on the verge of tears, I gave up all hope, pushed it near the lift which is where usually bulk garbage are kept and came back home.
By now, the little one was back to being his naughtiest again. He pulled out the kumkum box from the puja shelf and, not applied kumkum, but ate it! The rear end of another shelf which had been out of his reach so far suddenly seemed easily accessible to him and he took out the shikakai box and poured a few spoonfuls of it right outside the bathroom. I made the mistake of wiping it with a wet cloth and I was left with loads of lather!
Cut back to the evening when I thought I was finally done for the day. The little one wanted to have an orange juice and was happily sipping it when he suddenly lost interest in it and poured it down. Within a few minutes of wiping it, I saw him suddenly pouring the oil kept in the puja shelf for lighting lamps! This oil has been in this place for the last few months and he never once took it.
The next target was the few spoonfuls of atta that I had kept near the chapathi dough for making chapathis! I had had enough of multiple rounds of wiping by then and the sleep time of my son was also nearing. But I didn’t want any of us to slip on the atta either. So, after another deep cleaning, I simply turned off all the lights, pulled down all the blinds, carried my son and started walking back and forth. The tired little one fell asleep.
My husband entered the house at 7 30 pm and told me that the cockroaches are all still there inside the basket and even he couldn’t drive it away!