When noises are louder than usual…

 Something I have to write about because I think it almost everyday is this:  When you’re putting a baby to sleep…and have almost succeeded, every single noise is as loud as a fog horn.  Whether it’s a burp, creak, closing door, ringing phone, thump or a sneeze – they all sound equally noisy to the hapless parent who’s trying to get his child to sleep.

The joys of crumpling paper

We must have about $200 worth of toys lying around the house at this of time.  But our little baby boy likes nothing better than a piece of paper to play with.  Toss him a few sheets of paper and he’ll amuse himself quite contentedly for a while.  Ah yes, the joys of infanthood, I suppose.  

He’s just about to turn 6 months now and he’s now mobile.  The little squirt darts around the place on his belly (pulling himself around like those army folk in combat).   I can’t imagine what mischief he will get into once he starts walking.  It’s clear that we need to baby-proof our house.  I’m a tad apprehensive about that because I remember that those baby-proofing mechanisms usually ended up flummoxing me too.

Underestimating the work of parenthood

I have to say that going into parenthood, I had no illusions about how hard it was going to be – fractured sleep, constantly amusing an infant, deciphering unintelligent cries of discomfort, sleepiness or boredom etc. etc.  And I was ready for it all.  Bring it on, I said.  But over the last two weeks, I learnt that there was one aspect of this entire concept of taking care of a living thing that I underestimated: The care-giving needs to continue regardless of whether the parents are sick or not!  

Yikes!

After a whirlwind trip to India, the missus and baby returned home with me.  Unfortunately, baby brought an infection back with him, which made for hectic first week back here.  After this, I got either a separate infection or a mutation of what he had…and usually, I’d just curl up in bed, take a day off of work and sleep it off.  Order in some take-out and generally chill out.  Thanks for my doll of a missus, I was able to do this for a day or two.  And then, she fell sick…with an entirely different bug.  So there we were – two hapless parents with a hyperactive baby who was just recovering from a nasty illness of his own.  That was a HARD week!

But we survived!

Baby is growing really quickly.  He’s started crawling around the place and really has tons of energy.  If only he’d eat better.  We found out that he’s rather small for his age, but the doctor assures us that it’s perfectly normal.

Passing the parcel

It’s about two weeks since we got back from our vacation to India and I haven’t had much of chance to write because we’ve been passing the parcel.

we = I, the missus and the baby

parcel = some kind of ailment

In India, the baby got sick with some kind of cold/fever bug, thanks to the hordes of people at the family functions we were at.  On the way here, he happily passed that parcel onto the missus, who was miserable for a good week after we returned.  And now, the parcel has been passed to me. Now, in all fairness, I don’t know if this is the original parcel – the doctor diagnosed me with strep throat, a nasty bacterial bug.  I could have sworn that the original infection was a viral.  Anyway, I like calling it passing the parcel…so there.  Now that I’m on the mend, it seems like the baby is falling ill – again.  <sighs>.  In the meantime, all our attempts at bringing some sanity to our lives in terms of bedtime, naptime, bathtime schedules, rituals and so forth are failing miserably…mainly because it’s hard to lay down any rule when the poor munchkin is not well.

Patience is a virtue they say…gosh, we must be quite the virtous folks by now.

“The sharks are getting smarter…”

I once saw a movie called Deep Blue Sea with a good buddy of mine.  It was a terrible movie, which reminds me that this friend has managed to drag me to the worst movies I have ever seen.  Note to self: Must berate him for this!.  Anyway, I digress.  In the above movie, the central plot is about an experiment to maniuplate shark genes in order to develop a cure for Alzheimers Disease.  An unexpected outcome is that the sharks’ brains start to increase in size, resulting in some pretty intelligent predators who then proceed to wreak havoc in a way that makes Jaws look like Elmo.  There is a point in the movie (after all kinds of bad stuff has happened) when the lead scientist (a pitiful performance by Saffron Burrows) says : “The sharks are getting smarter!”.  Well, doh lady!  These creatures just organized a coordinated assault on your control center.  You think?!

I write all of the above because the missus and I are rapidly coming to the realization that our little baby is getting awfully smart.  And not in an Einsteinian way.  He seems capable of emotions of jealousy, when he sees his cousins being coddled by his mother.  He also seems to have remarkable powers of observation and imitation.  He’s noticed that when babies make loud painful noises, adults pay attention.  Having seen this work, he’s developed a brilliant strategy to ensure that he gets constant attention all the time.  Wail when you are being ignored!  And finally, he likes to be rocked to sleep in his mother’s arms.  So, if he doesn’t get that, he cranks up the volume.

The missus remarks to me after a particularly tiring night: “The sharks are getting smarter…”

Baby Comes Home

Tony’s adjusting to his new environment quickly.  I wish that we could get used to him just as fast.  We’re quickly discovering the challenges of interpreting a baby’s various sounds.  From the whimpering to the full blown wails, every sound seems to have its own nuance.  If only, we could translate those into plain English.  Needless to say, last night was quite a sleepless one.  Especially for the hapless mom and valiant grandmother.  I was quite the helpless spectator through the entire thing.  And you know, I think he doesn’t like me…as much as the ladies in his life so far. .  When I hold him, he’s crying bl***y murder.  The moment I hand him off to Granny Elsamma, he’s as quiet as a lamb.  And if he gets anywhere near his mother, he’s in throes of bliss

Parenthood and Consumerism

Yesterday, the missus and I visited our local BabysRUs, a megastore filled with anything and everything related to babies.  I was astounded at the sheer size of this place and the variety of products they carried.  For instance, the stroller section will remind you of a car dealership.  Dozens of (different types) baby strollers are lined up complete with, I dare say, new-car-smell.    Hey, I’m not complaining – it’s good to have choice.  But boy can it be confusing.  Just in the diaper section. there must have been at least 25 different types of diaper bags, 10 different diaper pails, and goodness knows what else.  Even though people have warned us of diapers consuming our lives after a baby arrives, nothing underscores this point more than a section of warehouse dedicated to this aspect of parenthood.  And then there are the clothes.  Clearly, baby clothes must use less cloth than adult clothes.  Why on earth do they cost more than my clothes?  Perhaps it’s because they’re harder to stitch because they’re so small, or is it because new parents are apt to go overboard in getting cute outfits for their new arrival?  Wandering around the store, it was clear that there were so many ‘nice-to-have’ items for kids.  And the markups on these things were significant.

So, the instinct to protect our children and give them the very best is understandable…and absolutely essential when thinking about schools, colleges and food.  However, I found myself asking: Does spending incrementally more (than the basics) money on clothes, shoes, diapers, strollers, even cars or houses and other material luxuries give our children anything other than a difficulty to live with just the basics?