Small packages can bring big changes

Innumerable things change after having a baby - big and small. It is so gradual that we notice them only after it has become a routine. I started noticing 11 months after having mine, and the consultant-devil woke up inside me to make a list of them*:

• No amount of wanna-be-cool mother resolutions work, and falling into obsessive-compulsive pattern seems inevitable.


• The disaster-intuitive radars start developing.


• The timid voice gives way to an assertive one.


• The catching reflex becomes stronger with each passing day.


• Organizational and multi-tasking skills sky-rocket.


• Judging and advicing married couples becomes difficult to control.


• Keeping a clean house while the baby is awake is an abandoned dream.


• Bath is a luxury, and even at its slowest, does not last longer than 10 minutes.


• The head is perpetually inclined at a 45 degree angle with ears pointing to the room where the baby is sleeping.


• the neighbourhood teenage boy playing loud music, the uncle meticulously reversing his car and the auto honking its horn are all equally and creatively bad-mouthed.


• Peeing and pooping are replaced by pee-pee and poo-poo, and their smells fail to stimulate or repulse us.


• Hosting a simple dinner takes a full day, if not more, taking the baby-delays into account.


• All the purchases are based on their being unbreakable and child-proof.


• A walk down the block, a trip to the garden or mall are all equally barfed at.


• Planning a trip back home becomes more nerve-racking than exciting.


• The mall shopping gets over in a haze - organized and rushed with a shopping list clutched in the hand like a lifesaver.
  
• Chunky jewellery and heels are discarded for an all-bare and flat look.


• No shopping trip is complete without checking out the baby store.


• There is always a shortage of cloth nappies.


• The shop-keepers and market owners suddenly become friendlier and more understanding.


• Steamed vegetables, runny dal rice and mashed apples start tasting delicious.


• Phone and spectacle replacement ideas are abandoned seeing the conditions of the current ones in the tiny hands.


• The days and weeks are passed by mentally noting all the relevant growth milestones.


• The mobile-using, hippie-clothed school children wandering hand-in-hand with the opposite sex are looked at with absolute terror, and worried looks are exhanged with the partner.


• All ways of raising the child, other than your own, seem faulty.


• Despite expecting it, the first 'amma' or 'appa' can send your heart plummeting.


• Watching a sleeping child suddenly becomes the new stress-buster, replacing book-reading and movie-watching.


• Unknowingly, the second childhood begins, where rhymes are sung and dances are danced entertaining self more than the child.


• You start respecting your parents more.


• With the added responsibilities, the bond with the partner becomes stronger and more dependable.

* I read a similar post-baby changes list by another blogger, but I hope against hope that this doesn't look like a rip-off!

From a loser's perspective

After singing a lot of out-of-tune old hindi songs, he finally seemed to be crumbling in. The eyes drooped, the shoulders slacked and the legs relaxed. I had been oscillating with him to and fro like a pendulum, hoping for this much desired (albeit late) effect.

Suddenly, the phone rings. The eyes open slowly. I pat him nervously, hoping the minor distraction doesn’t cause my 1-hour of effort to go waste. He smiles, closes his eyes and starts sucking his thumb. Phew.

“DIDI, PHONE BAJ RAHA HAI” – My maid screams. I virtually tear my hair apart as I watch my almost-4-month old son’s head pop up.

“NEEND NAHI AA RAHI HAI?” She then asks him innocently, while I shoot daggers at her.

As he gives her his now-famous lopsided smile, I wonder if he knows that, in my quest for control, he wins every single time.

-----

(2 hours Later)

After singing a lot of out-of-tune old hindi songs, he finally seemed to be crumbling in. The eyes drooped, the shoulders slacked and the legs relaxed. I had been oscillating with him to and fro like a pendulum, hoping for this much desired (albeit late) effect.

Then he starts hiccoughing. And he gives me that lopsided grin again.


Well played son, well played.