My Knight in Shining Paperback!

Yesterday was World Book Day. So it's only fitting that a book lover pays tribute to the book that has changed her life dramatically in the last few weeks! 

It's not a self help book. As a rule, I avoid self help books like people avoid falling into open manholes. It is not one of those about self discovery and inner journeys either. Most books of that genre put me to sleep within the first ten minutes; Paulo Coelho, Mitch Albom & Richard Bach, some of the supposed masters of the genre have so far only managed to send me on journeys into dreamland even before I reach page 5!!! 

But this post is not about any book on inner journey or self discovery. Or any self help book. It is about a lesser known, children's book called Owl Babies. It may not be as high brow or as well known as some of the books that grace my book shelf, but it is the one book that single handedly changed our lives for the better!

The brilliant book that helped us overcome separation anxiety.

The Vs started going to play school since they turned two in June. And since that day, each morning, our lives turned into a scene from hell!

It was not as if the Vs didn't enjoy school. In fact they loved being there. They made friends, they charmed the teachers, they had fun and they refused to leave when I went to pick them up. 

But the problem arose when I went to drop them to school. They would start howling the minute it was time to get ready for school. They would howl the entire way to school. They would cling to me and howl when we reached school. But apparently, the minute I left, the howling and crying would stop and they would get busy playing and enjoying themselves. Initially I would stand outside the school gate, waiting and listening, to see how long the howling continued. Then I realised with the door shut, I couldn't hear anything and all I did, waiting there, was make myself upset. So I stopped. 

Each day I told myself, "this too shall pass". But days turned into weeks and then months. The passing just didn't seem to happen. I started to worry. The teachers said it's called separation anxiety. Some kids go through it more than others but it will eventually pass. 

I googled, I read up. I tried to bribe them (okay this bribe word makes me sound terrible, maybe I should just rephrase it as 'reward', makes me look so much smarter!) with lollipops but the crying didn't stop. 

I started telling stories on the way to school. That made the crying on the way thankfully stop, and I was spared the suspicious glances from old ladies who would look at me as if I was a vicious kidnapper they had caught in the act and then ignoring me completely, would proceed to ask the boys "Why are you crying, darling?". (Yes this has happened to me more than once!) 

Still nothing worked. The minute we reached the school gate, the howling would begin like clockwork, only to stop completely the minute I left. Some days, the howling would stop even before I had finished parking the buggy! Never before did "out of sight, out of mind" ring more true!! 

I resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to be one of the moms who would happily wave bye bye to her kids and calmly walk out. Instead I became adept at furtively scurrying out each day, at times forgetting half the things I was carrying in my rush to keep the screams at a minimum. 

And then we went to India for our annual holiday and my friend Anu gave the Vs a lot of books as gifts and one of them was this wonder book - Owl Babies. Her son had gone through a bad case of separation anxiety when he began school and she found this book had helped them work through it! 

We started reading this and all 3 of us loved it from day 1. It is a really sweet, and not to mention, very relevant, story of 3 owl babies who wake up one night to find their mom missing. And as the story progresses, it moves on to deal with their anxieties and fears of "what if mommy doesn't come back?". 

The Vs absolutely adore the book; especially the part where one of the owl babies worries that the fox might have eaten up his mommy seemed to have struck quite the chord with V1 who would insist I read that part again and again. Finally fed up of wondering if he imagined me being eaten up by the fox as well, I burst his bubble of morbid imagination by telling him it was not possible for the fox to eat up his own mamma as she was much bigger than Owl Mummy and the fox!

The mantra we repeated each day "Mummy will always be back"

Now each day as we would go to school and the Vs would begin to howl, instead of telling them to not cry or please not cry or for heaven's sake, to not cry, I started gently reminding them of what Mummy Owl told the baby owls when she came back.

"Boys, what did mummy owl say?" I would ask. 

"That Mummy come back" the Vs would reply. 

"Exactly! Just like mummy owl, your mamma will be back. You don't need to cry. You don't need to be scared. Do you know why? Tell me why?" I would repeat, again and again. 

And the Vs would say "Because mummy come back". 

And this dialogue became our everyday ritual at the school gates. 

And one winter morning, the miracle happened. The howl turned into a whimper. The whimper soon became just a hesitation and a delay. And then one fine day, they just smiled and said, "Okay Mamma, you go now. Me big boy already" and waved and walked in. 

And I stood there with a slight ache in my heart. Much as I hated the crying, a part of me missed it, even though it was for a fraction of a second..