My cook’s 4 year old is spoilt as her mother had her late. We all spoil her cos she was born with a resting bitch face so she scares us.

She follows her mum everywhere so l insist she leave her with me. She starts gloriously wailing as per usual.

So l ask her if she hates me
This stops her mid wail as she looks at me in confusion.

I asked again, do you hate me Opeyemi? She said no, I lost everyone she loves in the house and ask same question.

She shakes her head vigorously

So why are you weeping to be left with us l ask.

She has no answer ..
You know your mama is coming back right? I ask.

She nods.

Then l tell her crying makes us feel bad cos we love her and if she’s afraid her mama won’t come back she can tell me and we’ll FaceTime her.

We 👊🏽on a biscuit deal and that was that.

4 year olds are not fully mad 😛
This morning Opeyemi threw a tantrum, she kept hitting her mum.

I noticed she did same yesterday.

After the storm l asked her to sit at breakfast with me.

I asked her why she cries and hits her mum. She’s quiet. I ask her what she’d like to do today, she’s quiet.

..
I realise she not used to having conversations with adults.

So l we talked about the hymns she’s always singing.

I asked about her friends and learn she has 4; Blessing, Aduke, Ibrahim and Lukuluku, aged 4 to 7.
Blessing is her best friend, they never fight
She tells me.
I ask her if she misses them seeing she’s in a new neighborhood with no kids.
She nods vigorously.

I call her mum and ask if she converses with Ope.

Aunty l talk to her she says.

I asked if she talks WITH her not to her or at her.

Mother says she’s just stubborn..
She gives the scenario of this morning’s mother daughter battle.

I pointed out that she’d lied to her and the child had hit her in frustration cos she’d learnt from her mother and others that you need to hit people to get your way.

I can see she thinks l’m talking shit....
So l ask Ope if she’d prefer an arrangement where she can see her friends more often? She says yes. I asked if she’d promise not to hit her mum again but tell her when she’s frustrated or unhappy about something. She nods.

We 👊🏽 to another deal and she skips away.
I talk with her mum and we change working arrangements to allow more time with family n friends so she’s not always with just her mum causing frustration of both parties. Whether it is romantic or filial love Ghalil Gibran is right to say “let there be gaps in your togetherness”
Also 4 year olds are not completely mad 😉.
Opeyemi is away for two weeks. I miss her.

No half smirk, half snark, half leg bend, head bobbing good mornings.

No shortie at the door eye balling anyone who dares come home with me.

No shrill cartoons competing for sofa space.

I might need ginger biscuits to survive this.
Because the not completely mad 4 year old Opeyemi is still away and my 17 year old is now too cool to be properly mad, l found a donut rant she wrote when she was 11 and quite mad. 😀
Apparently she was 10 and my maths is poor, l’m told. 🚶🏽‍♀️
Now we are all away.

We are on the road a lot watching

This one, now 17 and acutely observant, suddenly and solemnly says ... There's so much darkness and a nastiness behind the eyes, something is wrong.

I nodded in quiet agreement. Yes something has siezed joy off the land.
I am away, from the 4 year old who is not completely mad and the 17 year old who is sometimes 7 and something 57 so l am over thinking.

Once the 17 year old in her 57 year old mode gave me a string on which l have built a little tower which may be not stand up to windy facts...
But, bear with me.

In talking about civilizations and nations with her, l raised that oft repeated assertion that many nations which did not conquer or colonise others in far flung parts of the world were incurious and unadventurous and thus jeopardized their own civilizations..
She quipped, but mum, are civilizations not different? Maybe Africa civilizations then had more spiritual and trade base than industrial.

A late light went off in my brain.

If a civilization is built in regions of great environmental hostility, it will necessarily organize..
..itself around the idea of scarcity and thus the requirement to centralize and scale. However if the civilization is built around a more easeful environment then it's core might be ideas of abundance, therefore it's expressions more exchange and negotiation based, it's ...
.. expressions more accommodating of difference and scale much more individualistic and communal?

Therefore colonizing civilizations (not to be confused with amalgamating ones) were not more curious or adventurous but the base philosophy of each's curiousity was different...
... it would therefore imply that we live in a predominant civilization built on an idea of scarcity where there subsits a possibility of a parallel universe of civilizations that may be built ideas of abundance, cooperation, exchange and communities.

Some would argue ...
..that this is the true possibility of technology and globalization were these too not running on a core philosophy of scarcity.

Anyways the 17 year old had resumes listening to XXXtentacion and l still miss the 4 year old who would have dignified me with pretend interest .
I miss Opeyemi, she was meant to come around next Saturday but now they have moved the elections to that day.

I join all Nigerian bride mothers whose day of glory was meant to be next Saturday in collective annoyance.

We will vote with vex.
The 17 year old, now without competition, acts like she is a G (do they still use that non word?).

She is vexed because the local bakers had no electricity to make fresh bread.

They will turn on “the gen” to bake after church, which is sensible but she’s not placated ...
I know because of the following exchange.

Me: Did you walk all the way?

Madam: No I drove.

Me: Who gave you permission to take my car?

Madam: God.

I don’t know how to come back.

Help.
I don’t think anyone is inherently bad, or good. It’s just that it’s easier to be bad than it is to be good and the way we live pushes people towards the bad. - Mo, the 17year old.

#conversationswiththeyoung
Straddling two homes we decided we’d add a dog and a cat to the family.

We’ll get Araromi the dog for the 17 year old and Ojulari the cat for the 4 year old.

Araromi in London and Ojulari in Lagos.

We’ll certainly not be getting a snake,a fish, a rabbit or a tortoise.
The 17 year old suggests l get myself a nice successful international man, preferably Scandinavian who’s unlikely to be terrified of me and will probably find my weird Yoruba jokes funny basically cos he doesn’t get them.

Those are her words.

I think l raised her wrong.
Told her that those might be hard to find in a pet shop or from breeders so she suggested l go on one of those mindfulness for successful people retreat in some rustic luxury type place. That’s the breeding ground mum, she says with her clown wink

This one is definitely mad. 😂
All that really matters.

Happy Mother’s Day.
Earlier in the day, she sent me this from 2003 saying l’m so happy l got you and not one of those mums who show up occasionally with a cooler of jollof rice demanding devotion.

This one’s a clown.
Thos is how determined Opeyemi is. She got her mother’s phone to try talk to me as l am also her mother .
Opeyemi's resting Bitch face is missing a lot these days. She's a lot more easeful, which makes me a little uneasy.
The 17 year old got a puppy for her 18th, for two days. On the 3rd day of endless poo and pee cleaning, she declared herself unfit and found him a lovely family in the countryside. She's now rethinking motherhood and weighing other freedoms a day change to non child can bring.
She also sternly forbade me from tweeting about her for as she says, no one needs to know anyone's business, everyone talks too much and does too little. She's such a bore but quite scary so please don't tell her l'm disobedient.
Fortunately l have the 4 year old with whom l assume l have carte blanche until she's old enough to tell me to bugger off too.
So the 5 year old wants a toy, to make up for the time we’ve been away. Our oga madam, who is not street smart, googles “best toy shop”, so we ended up in Onipanu because she reads reviews and not mothers.

Onipanu startled her, so, like a sage doll, l redirected us to shoprite.
We are both comfortable with solitude but #LockDownNigeria has started getting to us because the teenager is talking to me, often.

It unnerves me.

She’s even showing me random videos from an alien world of skits, memes and mean.

Make it stop.
Then there is the 5 year old who spends a lot of time with the boy next door, 4, who is her friend but not her boyfriend, till evening when she returns to ask for “ the exercise”, our daily neighbourhood walk where we take pictures of stuff we see, and dance, sometimes.
Yesterday, at the rationed supermarket nearby, she wanted a small box of pringles at a price equal to 3 nice locally made boxes of biscuits which as junk goes is better than Pringles. I said no, she glared and pouted but me Aduke, takes no nonsense from mimi blackmailers so ..
We buy the biscuits; vanilla, strawberry and chocolate, l know she’s vexed because she doesn’t say a usual cheery hello to Kabiru the cat who was with the mallams guarding house no 16.

15 mins later, I spot her in her favourite armchair, legs on side table, remote in hand, ...
Juice in jaunty superhero cup, TV on favourite channel smirking and chomping.

This child is a Nigerian husband 😱.

... oh shoot, the smart one has whooped me at Letterpress again, ...whilst l told you this story.
Teenager turned 19 so the great Dr Roberts of lovely #orchidbistro chain made us the kooky cake she wanted, to lift #quarantine blues. Roberts is efficient and kind. He’s a real medical doc who bakes. It’s her last one as a teenager so she wanted to make it count, in dollars
We shared the cake with every one, a small piece each to go round many.

Afterwards she worked and that was that to it.

In between she told her many jokes and stories which are laugh out loud funny but sometimes my naija mum wonders, is she going to burn my sweat in comedy?
So this morning we gathered round the kitchen table whilst she cooks breakfast.

Mama Ope is telling us #coronavirus conspiracy theories and self help she learns from wassap.

I reason with her to explain how China is not trying to kill the world or experimenting on Nigerians
Under the wild tales are gems about immunity boosting practices which l point out are great but not a cure or prevention.

She’s worried about hunger in the land so Ope who is 5 and sing-songy says her friend Lukuluku told her mummy B is giving people Garri in their Bariga home
Mummy B is a politician. They don’t know her ideology or manifesto but she is giving #quarantine garri so they like her.

We talk about world leaders who have had a bad brush with #Coronavirus and Oga Jo our man with undefined job who has watched over us for 17 years talks about
Abba Kyari and rumours that this is a disease that will only kill the rich and powerful. I tell him anyone can get it. He says he’s heard people from his village in Benue don’t want the city people coming.

The teenager says she feels we are in a simulation. I mention rumours ..
about #KimYoJong today and the teenager scoffs, “that man will be there till the end mum. He’s only 33 or something no?”

Aunty Bose, that’s Mama Ope, asks who that is. Oga Jo says “nah that fat man for North Korea o wey dey carry explosions for dem Japan and all dem”..
The teenager has finished making the pancakes for everyone, she wanted to cook for mama ope who we all call aunty Bose who has fed her since she was 7.

Aunty Bose is originally from Cameroon and a formidable cook. Only the brave enter “her kitchen”. Opeyemi grabs her plate
.. and tries to bounce off but we tell her to say thank you because “you must always appreciate the good things you get so you get more of it and you must give the good you like to others”. Keep it flowing Miss O l say.

She gives a syrup dripping mouthful nod as we hear ..
.. the doorbell go, it’s probably the 4 year old next door who has come to play.

Opeyemi grabs the hand sanitizer by the door, no one comes into our home without doing the Koro protocol, not even best boy friends who are not boyfriends. Not on Miss Opeyemi’s watch.
Aunty Bose is from Benin Republic not Cameroon. This is why other Africans don’t like us.

That’s what Barbra says. She’s the Liberian lady l’ve trusted to honey wax my skin for 16 years.

Her meticulousness is an art form. She can’t earn a living now so l must support her.
In these difficult times my resolution is to keep everyone who works for me or with me paid as usual for as long as l can hopefully till we all make it to the other side of this trying times.

For other things, l prefer the principles of Matt 6:2.

Dignity to all.

🤍
Oh l have a social distance Sunday service testimony. Sad l couldn’t eat the teenager’s cake, cos, well, life is, but then suddenly the doorbell rings and Opeyemi springs forth, sanitises delivery man and in comes this... look at God o, a miracle l tell you, a fecking miracle.
I provide ample warning that should Dr Robert want to run for political office l will vote for him because he gives me cakes and that other possibly useful information that he has volunteered and run an estate l know with German efficiency for over 15 years.
Whilst watching RuPaul together, the teenager and l talked about how government could become intimate and local, from generation to allocation.

10 years ago she’d point at abandoned federal buildings and ask why they couldn’t be housing.

Why can’t we all eat cake.
Ojulari arrived two days ago. She came on a bus from Abuja to Mazamaza and took an Uber the rest of the way.

I wondered what a cat’s journey across Nigeria was like but she looked like she might slap me with all the might of her 7 week old body.
Maybe Araromi will have an idea as he came in an Uber four weeks earlier, but he’s a bit cowardly and over indulged by all, because he’s fluffy, whitish and cute, so, what can he possibly know about the life of a cat who’s black, tiny and female, living in a dog’s world.
Opeyemi is estatic about Araromi although he’s not so hot on her as she’s too eager, even for a dog.

I tell her she needs to ignore him more so she doesn’t become his bitch.

Ojulari just glares and growls at her, leaving her a bit perplexed.

5 years olds can’t out mad cats
Anyways she’s got a fake American accent now, the one she learnt on DSTV and Netflix because there’s only so much reality a child can take.
Big mummy, this house is very cute. I like it.

- Opeyemi, almost 6, sane and sassy.

Peaking through my door clutching the cat to give me our daily 6.30am wake up call to walk the dog on grass.

I love her.
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