Pudd’ng is learning from the best teacher — moi — that there is nothing emasculating in a father “rocking” an apron. Besides, when I have writer’s block, or my muse goes MIA, one of my cures is chores. I mean, anything to take my mind off the actualities of creating. I have had eureka moments while doing mundane household tasks.
Towards the end of last year we saw a documentary, Working Lives , on the Beeb. One of the profiles was on Roseline Awino, an itinerant launderer who cleans the clothes of, among others, the Sauti Sol quartet.
“Kwani these big men who sing on TV can’t wash their clothes themselves?” Pudd’ng was taken aback. “They’re being oshewad for by a woman.”
Here is Pudd’ng’s logic. What is good for dad is good for all dudes. Now flip the script and here is Pudd’ng’s teachable moment: I will give men a bad name if I am cruel to Tenderoni.
One of the first questions Pudd’ng asks whenever I return home is, “What have you brought me?” This is a throwback to the era of hunting and gathering when men brought home game and goodies from their jungle jaunts. Most children’s wish lists — unless they are a petroleum Sheikh’s child — are not packed with pricey things. For many “normal” children, it is the thought that counts.
Last December when Pudd’ng found that the surprise I had for her was a pair of new school shoes, she was not th-a-a-t surprised. To the little fashionista, this is the thought that currently counts: what is happening. I cannot fathom Pudd’ng’s teenage wish lists. Hopefully, by that time I will have hit me an oil well in Turkana.
I am blessed. Unless my work takes me away from home, Pudd’ng sees me first thing she wakes up and last thing before she turns in. I am literally in my daughter’s sweet face, which is a great thing because I get to see her growing “trail”. With children, sometimes you blink and miss a Kodak milestone. If I have an appointment or interview, Pudd’ng finds it strange.
When I am all dressed up, she always asks where I am going. Here is my take. A “visible” father — even if via Skype — is a guy with a caring head on his shoulders. So do your thing, diaspora dad.
It may be small things like tying her shoe laces, or stuck things like opening the ketchup bottle. Or spelling things like the meaning of some big word she has heard on television. But Pudd’ng sees me as strength personified. I always tell Pudd’ng that if anything happens to her, she should not be afraid to come straight to daddy. Me? I want my daughter to relate with me as her guardian angel, not her prison guard.
I am Pudd’ng’s last line of defence. When she is playing with her friends and someone does something to her, it makes me feel superhuman to overhear her bragging, “I’ll tell my dad.” “I’ll tell my dad.” Like dad has a big “S” painted on his one-pack.
Pudd’ng thinks dad knows all the answers, from saving the ozone layer to her doll’s ‘thinning’ hair. About the latter, Pudd’ng “amputated” its limbs while playing surgeon and plucked off its hair while playing hairstylist. Here are some of Pudd’ng’s FAQs (frequently asked questions), the “funnily asked questions”. I jotted them down a year or so ago. They may be overtaken by time, seeing as the little girl now thinks she is all grown up.
“Dah-dee, si neno born is a word?”
“Dah-dee, is it called the Holy Bible, or Bible Holy?”
Each night before Pudd’ng turns in, she knows that I must ask the big bedtime question: “Gone for a short call?” Sometimes she will reply, “It has refused”, as if “it” has a mind of its own.
If Pudd’ng does not go to sleep with an “empty tank”, I know she will wake me up at seche jajuok , Dholuo for nightrunner’s hour. This is when I usually finish counting the last bleating merino.
Pudd’ng has never woken up her mother, who sleeps like a log. The other night, after I took baby girl to the bathroom, she planted a kiss on mom’s cheek. Tenderoni did not budge and could not remember when Pudd’ng told her about it in the morning. Just my luck. The snoring babe gets all the pecks, while the sleep-deprived watchie gets the job of counting sheep. Again.
