I thought I had gotten a hang of being a mother until I resumed school. Before I resumed school, I was always in the house with Nathanael while my mom went to her restaurant. Sometimes I would stroll over to the shop to eat or relieve boredom but during my first semester in school, my mom suggested to take Nathan to the restaurant with her until I was done with lectures everyday. I would return to the shop straight from school, have lunch, sometimes dinner, and then take Nathan home to perform my motherly duties.
There were days I had to breastfeed my son while studying. Believe me, you don’t want to know how it feels to battle with understanding a foreign language while a little human is sucking greedily from a part of you.
It was like my book sucked my brain while my child sucked my breasts. This alone wore me out and drained me physically and otherwise and within three months of resuming school, I fell really ill.
I was barely able to read, do assignments and successfully do projects in the house so when I saw how poor the result of my first semester exams were, I had to beg my mom to help me out.
I say it again, God bless my mother.
She began taking Nathan to the shop and bringing him back whenever she closed. She literally became his mother while I concentrated on coming back home to study, do chores and rest.
My neighbors and shop owners around didn’t make life any easy for me. I earned the nickname ‘After one’ in my street. Whenever people saw me, they would ask after my baby just so that the other people that hadn’t found out could ask
“ahnahn she get pikin?”
And they would answer delightfully,
“yes o, she be after one”
Only God knows how I didn’t lose my sanity then.
©️G.O.V.T💖✍️
