The Feeding Bottle

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The Feeding Bottle

Though amma left us years back, there are some fondest memories of her that I treasure till today. I don’t know about other children, but my parents had a different approach in bringing us up. I was drinking milk out of a feeding bottle till I was 9 years old though many kids below my age were already sipping out of a plastic cup. What can I say? I am glad they did not replace my cute feeding bottle to a cup very early or else, I might not be able to embrace the tenderness of this sweet memory of beloved Amma.

So it was always the usual routine of amma or appa waking me up for school. Some days, I slept with my sisters like a big girl but most days I was curled up in my parents room with Appa in between Amma and me. I had an excessive habit of kicking whatever that was next to me when I was asleep (not anymore. I outgrew that habit). Amma could not take the kickings so Appa voluntarily put himself in between to get kicked all night long. Did he complain? NEVER.

Appa or Amma would wake me up and growing up in a family of 5 daughters, the bathroom would oftentimes be occupied by one of my sisters. I’d walk lazily to the living room and lay again on the couch trying to catch a few minutes more of sleep. The memory of Amma making milk in the kitchen is still very fresh. She would scoop some milk powder and add hot water to it. She would then add 2 scoops of wheat and honey flavored Nestum cereal and shake the bottle vigorously like there is no tomorrow. It was the best breakfast ever. Not sticky, not solid and not entirely liquid. But a perfect mixture of warm milk with a little wheat in it. She was afraid that I'd go hungry in school.

Some days, I would stand by the kitchen door looking at her and thank god I did what I did. She would then drip the milk into her mouth to check if it was too hot for me to drink. Sometimes, the hole on the nipple of the feeding bottle would be very narrow preventing the cereal from flowing out easily. She would effortlessly take out the safety pin that is always attached to her nuptial chain and pierce the silicon nipple several times to enlarge it. She would then try dripping the milk again to see if it is flowing out easily. She would then run the feeding bottle filled with hot milk and cereal under the tap several seconds to cool it off a little more before passing it to me.

It was always Appa who brought the feeding bottle to me. He knows how much I hated the water droplets sticking to the surface of the bottle dripping to my face while I'm drinking out of it. He would very quickly wipe dry the bottle on his shorts before passing it to me. I would happily wash down the milk and get ready for school. At that point of my life, I did not realize that what they both were jointly doing would mean so much to me now. These days, when I get home from work, open the refrigerator and reach out to a cold HL milk carton and drink straight out of it and plop myself on the bed exhausted, all I want is to relive the morning moments of getting ready to school though I know it is impossible.