Some days

Today has been a totally enjoyable day spent after slogging for ages at work (weekends included) non-stop. I remember as a kid watching my cousins who were also software engineers pour their hearts and souls into their jobs till they were too exhausted for words - when a trip to the icecream parlour with a bunch of us around the corner seemed like heaven to them and they enjoyed frolicking around with me in what is usually termed as 'child's play'. I used to think - "When I grow up, and have a job, (that earns me BIG bucks!!), I will work only from 10 - 5 (with multiple breaks included - for chocolate shopping sprees, innumerable cups of choco drinks and many, many icecreams!)........" i doubt if any serious work was included in my itenary for the day back then.
Now, I am a full fledged software engineer. And reality tends to crash down on one's head when faced in person sometimes. (It is far different from my childhood fantasy of fun-filled hours in which all I did was read the latest Enid Blyton and play computer games to my heart's content.)
Well, let's forget about work for sometime!
My sister and her son are in town - which means I am a developer at day and a baby-sitter at night! Usually I am a bit exhausted by the time I get back home - but one can't resist an earnest toddler tugging at her hand saying "Chithi ('aunt' in Tamil), pppppppppiiiiiiizzzzzzzzz (meaning 'please') come!"
We have a whale of a time together - playing with his ball (Dad, Vidya - my sister, Mom and I are roped in to play a mini-version of football where all of us are goalies and my nephew, Surya, is the star player of our tiny team). Or one of us is with him at the PC, as he watches us play old arcade games (as far as he is concerned - HE is the one playing!). At the end of the day, we are tired of running after him, before him and along with him - but he is not (:D).
Today was no different - he played all his favourite games with me, while I tried to understand his non-stop prattle which didn't seem to make any sense to me - but meant a lot to him. Surya could understand me - but I couldn't understand a single syllable of what he spoke. In the end, we resigned to conversing in sign language - Surya would say something - I would point out or act out what I thought he wanted to do - and he'd say 'yes' with an angelic smile or a 'no,no,no' (yes, exactly like that and that many times!) accompanied by a vigorous nod. Today, as i watched him, I couldn't stop thinking - "This is the same little baby I held in my hands gingerly because I thought I might hurt the fragile looking, warm bundle of a baby if I held him too tight. Now, I have to hold onto him like dear life for fear that he will leap out of my hands onto something too sharp for hard for his little body to bear the pain. Things change - and they have changed so fast!"