It’s been almost 250 days he’s been in our lives, but every day that I watch this child, I have so much amazement and joy at the things he does and the things he teaches me in the process. I know many of these things all babies do. I understand this is not unique. I know things can and will change. He’ll grow and likely develop more complex emotions and characteristics. But so far, it has been beautiful to watch this little human grow. Here’s six of the many things I’ve learnt from Vir so far: - Commitment - From the last one month, all that Vir wants to do all day long, is to stand. He discovered somehow (I give this to Vivek) that if someone holds his hands, he can stand – how ever briefly and how ever wibbly wobbly that may be. Forward to one month ahead, now from the minute he wakes up and says Good morning with that toothy smile, he looks at the bed railing that’s supposed to protect him if he rolls over; and he wants to stand. He only wants you to take him next to it, he’ll do the rest. He tries to hold the bucket and tub when he’s bathing to stand. He tries to find something to grip on even if he’s strapped on to his own feeding seat and yes, you guessed it, tries to stand. He goes to play on the swing and he tries to hold the chains and stand. He does this till the second he’s taken to bed at night and passes out. Sometimes in the middle of the night feeds also, he wants to stand! Every time I look at him do this, it hits me. I’ve never ever been so committed about anything in my life – And I thought I’ve been pretty committed about some shit in the past. I took a year off after college because I didn’t get into the universities I wanted to, then I aced the entrance a year later. I spent 27 notebooks in one year in my 12th standard because my Math wasn’t the best and my Math teacher hated me – I got a 100 in the finals. I (okay, we) endured a lot of crap to finally be with Vivek and we make it work 10 years later too. BUT. I do not have this level of insane focused commitment that this child does and never have. I’m 35 and I’ve read many quotes and books that preach this, but he’s showed me up close and real that if you really want to do something, you’ve got to be at it from morning to night. Maybe, we’ll use this commitment for a startup someday! After we get some 6 hours of sleep at night, first.
- Treat everyone with love & respect - Respect everybody: This is something I learnt from my dad too – To be kind to everybody. Whether the waiter, the watchman, the newspaper hawker, the lift man, everybody. Vir’s truly inherited it from his grand father. He gives the maid the biggest smile every day when she sees him in the morning and says Hello. He wants to grab the watchman’s hat, smiles at everyone in the lift and every waiter in the very few cafes we’ve taken him to. We moved to a new place two months ago and when I go down, people call me Vir’s Mumma (A mom has no name – remember) and tell me how he smiles at them and talks to them every day! He goes happily to my Yoga instructor, to all my friends and some of their pretty dangerous offspring too. Touch wood, let’s hope this Leo baby doesn’t suddenly display Vivek’s obvious Cancerian and my latent Piscean introvertedness.
- Be open - He may decide later he hates it and he won’t let you try to feed him another bite. But he will try every single new thing if you put it in front of him for the first time and swallow it – Steamed broccoli (!), Blanched and pureed spinach, Avocado mash, Chickoo (Sorry, but I won’t eat this for a million bucks).
- Be Assertive - Vir knows when to say No. Even if he cannot say the N and the O. He has always been the kind of baby who refused something if he didn’t want it and God knows, no one can force it on him. No one has ever been able to give him the bottle if he didn’t want it, No one’s been able to give him the pacifier, No one can force solids on this child if he does not want to. In retrospect, these are all excellent things he’s decided to refuse. His methods may suck (read: obscenely, intense crying and deafening screams), but I have got to give it to him. Even someone as stubborn as me has given in to things at times – but you’ve gotta learn how to push back on something you don’t want to, no matter how strong, or how many people on the other side, even if you happen to be 1/20th of their combined stature!
- Don’t bear grudges - There are some 3 and 4 am wakings which are absolutely painful and God knows Vivek and I do our best to be as calm as possible. But after 90-120 minutes of nothing working, we’ve both had our times when we’ve lost our cool and raised our voice and said “Please ab toh so jaa!”. He realized someone’s yelling at him and he only cried even louder, till we mellowed down and somehow made him sleep and when he finally woke up in the morning, he looked at us with the same love as always. No grudges. Vivek would be most happy if I learnt this from Vir 😝
- Find joy in simple things - There are times I’ve seen Vir find more joy from the plastic wrapper of a toy more than the toy itself; from an almost dead balloon more than a bouquet of balloons itself; from my hair or face than some fancy rattle. Vir’s taught me that it’s easy to find joy in the little, sometimes unnoticed things around you.
Here's praying he continues to grow and teach us some beautiful things along the way. God knows, we could all do with a lot more positivity in our lives!
