Nineteen months, since I've become a mother and each month brings with it new challenges. I feel like I'm inside a video game for life, where I've crossed Level 1 so far. My baby is Super Mario, my husband and I are player 1 and player 2. His tantrums get worse by the day and his cuteness increases. So we tend to overlook his hideous behaviour of shouting, beating, scratching and biting.
We are fried at the end of the day and look like we passed through an electric fence. By we, I mean my husband and I. The baby is just fine. He gets louder and faster with each passing day. Only couples with babies (especially two babies, God bless their soul), understand the tragedy we are in. Grandparents empathize upto a point, they are always on the baby's side. Grandparents are like biased Sherlock Holmes, they've already solved the case for you. It's not the baby's fault, it's yours. Okay then.
Close friends make suggestions like, "You have to find "me time" and train him to play on his own." Very well meaning, I know, but let's have that conversation once you have a baby of your own, my dear. Until then, hold my hand as I chug through this phase or don't. I'll understand, either way.
There are not enough online parenting articles and recipes in the world, to raise a child. You're never ready and it's always going to be hard. So let's save all that literature, for another day. Also, each child is different. What works for one, will not work for another.
90% of my day goes in cooking and feeding. I have not met a fussier baby, when it comes to food. And I'm in utter shock. I wonder how, my own flesh and blood, could be so violently opposed to eating, when I myself am a big foodie. I just need to smell hot bhatoores to eat like a pig. "These are your brother's genes, he was also a very difficult eater", says my mother reassuringly, as another piece of ghee fried paratha comes flying to my face.
Let's not even get started on diapers. The minute I let him diaper-free to air his bum, he poops an entire load. Until then, no poop. Not even a whiff! As for his sleep, it's all over the place. However late in the day, I put him to bed, he will wake up by 5.45am sharp and if we're very lucky, on some rare days, 6.30am. He wakes me up with a slap on the face or a whack with my mobile phone.
We'll need coffee, lots of dark chocolate and on really crazy days, some red wine, to get through this. Nobody told us, it would be this hard, when we signed up to become parents. We were expert arm chair advisors and loved playing with other people's children, BEFORE we became parents. Now we look at other parents and give them an all knowing smile, indicating, "We know. Let's just hang in there."
Make no mistake, we love this baby very much. We yearned for him and struggled to have him. We cannot imagine our lives, without him. But on some days, we wish we lived on an island far far away from him. His naughtiness cannot be described in words. You have to experience it, first hand to understand. He would put a monkey, living inside the deep jungles of the Amazon rainforest to shame. That's how maddening his antics are.
Our house looks like a war zone, with toys and books strewn everywhere. The food he eats, is plastered on all our furniture. He has recently started self-feeding, now that's another level of mess, which takes hours to clean.
Fellow parents, we got this. Let's give each other a mental high-five and get on with our action packed days.
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