EMAIL FROM AMERICA: Ominira is in a relationship
I found out on
Facebook that our teenage daughter Ominira is in a relationship. I am
not handling it very well. I had always assumed that I would be the
only man in her life. We have a special bond even though she is one of
our four children.
When Ominira was
born, she came to this earth with a stomach the size of that of a
starving pigeon. My wife and lover is the hardest working human being
on earth, bar none. I would not be writing today without the benefit of
her industry; she loves us and will do anything to ensure our welfare
and comfort. Well, anything except lose a second of her sleep. As long
as she is awake, she is good, but once girlfriend goes to sleep she is
genetically incapable of waking up until she is good and ready, which
is usually the next morning. If there is a fire in the neighbourhood, I
have trained myself to simply sling her on my shoulder, grab my
American passport and ask the children to find their way. LOL! Man wen
dey cry dey see road. My wife, me and my American passport are
inseparable, who nor like better ting?
I am a night owl,
my muse wakes up only at night and so most of my literary mischief is
hatched at night. I generally have the kids in the evenings after work
and all weekend when my wife is at work. Sounds like a divorce
settlement but it really is not. This arrangement works for us. I am
actually a househusband, and I enjoy the role. I learnt how to babysit
children when I was a little boy. My mother loved to give me the baby
du jour to hold while she and other women sallied forth on the evils of
men. I learnt to hold on to a baby for hours without complaining.
Complaining was usually unwise because it attracted unnecessary
roughness on my head.
So the babysitting
skills I developed as a child proved to be invaluable in America. I
loved to feed our children at night. Each night, like clockwork a baby
would wake up and demand fillet mignon in a bottle, warmed up to the
right temperature. Babies always prefer to be changed before being fed,
after which they poop and they have to be changed. They also love to be
rocked to sleep. This is stressful after you have been drinking lots of
beer, so I stopped drinking for a while. I owe the survival of my liver
to my kids.
Rocking Ominira
involved walking around our tiny townhouse, listening to neighbors and
insects making loud lusty love. Once Ominira fell asleep, I would go to
sleep until she rings the bell for service which was usually after five
minutes. When Netter_Shoks, our first child came, we were all excited,
we had a room for her, complete with a crib, mattresses, blankets,
teddy bears, chimes, and assorted cute stuff that we got from excited
friends, neighbours and relatives in this primitive American ceremony
called a baby shower. Well, Netter_Shoks hated sleeping in that room
alone; she preferred our bed, which was stressful, if you know what I
mean. My lover had no problem with our baby’s strong preference to be
between me and her. I had serious issues with this arrangement; it has
affected my relationship with Netter_Shoks. We are in counselling.
Being a
househusband is no big deal; the kids don’t know the difference. I had
a great time with them and I bonded quite well with the kids. In the
evenings and on weekends we went everywhere, they wanted to be with me.
Whenever they were cranky, I would put them in the van and drive around
our neighbourhood until they started snoring and then I would carry
them into the house one at a time.
One very cold
winter, doing my Christmas shopping, I bundled Netter_Shoks in a
carrier on my chest, covered both of us in a winter coat and went to
the mall. Two alert and nosy African American females stopped me to
peek into my chest with the memorable words: “Is that YOUR baby in
there?” They probably thought I was a child snatcher. When our son was
born, one weekend there was a snow blizzard and my lover was stuck at
work and could not come home. Night came and our son wanted to breast
feed, and his yeye lips reached for my imaginary breasts, I almost
fainted with shock. It was a long three nights without my lover.
Back to Ominira,
like clockwork every 2:00 am I would take her out of bed, tiptoe
downstairs and feed her. For two years. We became best buddies. I can
still see her two teeth vibrating with joy as I enter the room from
work. To this day, she peeks into rooms looking for me. When I am not
around she calls and texts around every where looking for me. We are
buddies. Now she is in a relationship, how does that work?
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