“Animals and children tell the truth they never lie. Which one is more human there is a thought now you decide… compassion in the jungle, compassion in your hands…”
When we brought Duke into our lives, these words echoed through our souls. But then Duke is a completely different child. He is extremely belligerent, over zealous, stubborn and madly in love with us. Bringing up Duke was one helluva experience, but that did not deter us from wanting to have a child. It is often said that being educated and informed you must plan your child well. I had no plan financially or emotionally. I wanted to take this new life as it came. I believe this is how 99% of the world’s parents have their kids.
When Pari was born the comparisons to us were obvious. As she is growing all comparisons are fading away. I think she is made differently from either of us. She is adapting herself to her environment. There are so many things different about Pari I’ve realized in these 14 months:
- Since her birth, I have not seen her once kick a fuss about her feed. Her staple was milk and she immediately graduated to regular cuisine with a brief stint with cerelac. No formula milk, no processed food. She eats her veggies, it I who still fuss around.
- She loves being surrounded by people, specially the ones she knows. She knows all my friends and can identify even their pictures.
- The first word she said was thata and very clear and specific. I tried teaching her amma, but she simply said thata. This was at 8 months age. Later on, based on necessity her vocabulary has developed from a span of 4 words to 40 in like a month. She asks for bobba, paalu,ballu and lets us know if she has to use the bathroom. What we did not understand were: mummie aalu,daddu aalu,harry aalu and babi aalu. Later we understood, it was ‘I love you’.
- If I am working or anything, she does tend to pull my laptop. But most of the time she is pretty occupied by herself. If we are watching a movie she is there in a corner, pulling her toys or reading her book. She even watched “Appalraju KSD” is relative peace.
- She climbs the stairs to go and play at the landlady’s house. Once sleepy she comes back home. Our maid monitors her from a distance. Pari is a very careful kid. She is not the kind to risk getting hurt from known things. Also her resilience to pain is good. I once mistakenly closed the door and her finger got in the way. It swelled badly and yet after the initial 15 minutes of fuss she barely remembered it.
- She immediately took a liking to the pets in the house. Duke, Jimmy and the kittens. So much that whenever she wants to see them and knows that they are not around, she asks for book. The picture book with all dogs in it.
- In this period of 14 months only twice I and Guns have had an all-nighter. Once was when she had a bad nappy rash and the other was after Ravi anna’s wedding, the poor kid may have had body pains.
- Her keen observation for day-to-day things is so enchanting. If I say “Pari let’s get ready”, her checklist begins: “Bottu,gajulu,paalu”. Once all these are catered to, she goes and picks up any handbag and is ready to go.
- If she is sleepy, she demands her bottle, takes her rug and finds a bed to sleep. I stopped singing her lullaby or trying to make her sleep since she was 7 months old. If we are sleeping she isn’t sleepy, she can still keep herself busy. A week ago when both me and Guns were dozing off in the train, Pari was silently playing by herself sitting beside me. My co-passengers were so worried and kept vigilance. Later we were told on very strict terms, to keep our damn eyes open with the kid in such public places. At home too, since 9 months onwards we stopped keeping an eye over her once she is asleep. If she is awake and can hear the TV, she simply climbs down from her bed and walks over to us. Her senses are pretty good as she can navigate in complete darkness following only the fluorescence light from the television.
- She is a born foodie. If I make anything that please her taste buds, she demonstrates the same but saying “aaaammuuu” and dancing like hell for the next half an hour. Otherwise, the offending piece of food, lands flat on the floor. And the most lovable thing is, she shares her food with everyone around. Be it as precious as chocolate or ice cream, she always has her spoon out for you. If you have to feed her, she will expectantly look into your cup and give you a cute smile that says… “One for me please.”I am still stingy about sharing my ice cream and Guns still snatches food off my plate. Of course, she does become restless, if you don’t offer her any and yes she will scream if you still don’t give her that one spoon. Come on I think that is highly justified :D.
There are many other things that make Pari different form either of us. I do not think she is determined to be different. After all, what will a kid know? She is born different. Sometimes we both think that she is made keeping in view our low threshold for tantrums, extremely low patience when it came to feeding. Our policy is: “You don’t want to eat, well we are not forcing you either”. I guess she may be worried that we may miss her mealtimes if she is too fussy :P. Also, the fact that we ourselves cannot be too vigilant, she has learned to climb and get off the bed/sofa for her own good. She is resilient enough considering the fact, how rough we are. Oh, she does have her share of pestering for food and attention, but she does like being left alone and I couldn’t agree less with the timing. I do not know if it is the genes or it is situational or that all kids in this generation are manufactured this way, but I am surely very grateful to god for such an amicable child.
