My 2 and 1/2 months old boy

My boy

You're two and a half months old now, son. I have known you only for a very short time and yet the relationship is so blissful.

It wasn't love at first sight, my dear, sorry, it wasn't. Yes, you were (are) so cute and tiny and what-not-to-adore baby. I was also very frightened to be given such a task. When I took you in my arms for the first time, I was elated, horrified, stupefied all at the same time. 

But dear, your father handled it very well. He started his love for you even before you were born and started loving you even more after you were born. He adores you so much that every  morning, I have to chase your father out to work and take you off his arms. He even has his breakfast with you on his lap. I guess he must be seriously considering packing you in his bag and taking you to work. I've gotta screen him before letting him go, I guess.
You certainly have him wrapped around your little finger. Even if I yell and scream my lungs out calling your dad sitting just a room away, I will find him hooked to his laptop with no knowledge of the impending danger. But, you make the littlest sound, he comes flying to attend to you, to change your nappy, to comfort you and even complains about the lack of mammary glands (No, darling, you don't have a crazy father. He is just crazy for you).


Do you know that your mother who poses to dominate this household is such a weakling in the emotions department? Oh, yes and extremely sensitive. Even though its a fact that a baby will start looking at faces around 3 months old mark, I was so upset on day 3 itself that you weren't looking at me and so you may not be liking me at all. Your father had to convince me against  my weird theory with his even weirder theories and I remained unconvinced until quite recently when you decided to make me fly with a beautiful smile.

Also you have started coos and gurgles only now and I love watching you. Yet you seem to be quite biased as you usually sleep off in my arms, but converse so wildly with your paatti and dad. And your dad gloats about it. You love the rides he gives you on his shoulder and I guess you must be liking the view in a different angle. Your dad gloats more. He is just waiting for your head to stabilize so that he can carry you like a kangaroo. 

I believe you will be very egoistic and wont blame you for it as it could be an inherited one (Yes, from me). You dont cry for your needs easily. I have been noticing this since you were born. You used to fuss when you were a week old, but after that if you want to be attended to, you just yell out a loud 'Hey' and one of your slaves  (namely your paatti or mom or dad) run to you to serve you. You still behave like that but you have learnt to adjust the volume of your 'Hey's depending on the distance between you and your nearest slave.

You have already started living the life the way you want. If you wanna be cuddled by a person you want, you just keep 'Hey'ing until you're passed to that person and that person is almost always your paatti or dad and never your mom. Sigh.
There are times you just wanna be left alone to your own devices. Lying in your cradle with your big round eyes open and you in rich contemplation of the cradle hook and the wall beyond it. If I come peek into your cradle to see if you're ok, you shoo me away with a loud 'Hey' and I respectfully keep my distance.

Every evening, you call us for a family get-together meeting simply by your loud coos and gurgles. And once we assemble, you converse very animatedly with your dad and paatti and yes of course leaving me to be a spectator who is jumping wildly like a fan trying to get a celebrity's attention. And I never get it. And your dad gets to gloat more. So I just remain admiring you.

You love your bath. Every afternoon at around 12 you take your bath. You seem to have a good sense of time that your mother doesn't have in spite of all the wall clocks in the house. By one in the afternoon, you will become fussy and start Heying until I strip you down which is your signal for bath. I started giving your bath with water from a small vessel and upgraded to a small bucket. Now you take bath in a huge bucket full of water and I am sure that even if I empty the whole tank of water you would just ask for more. Though you dont love the getting soaped part, you graciously allow me to do it without a word because you know a lot of warm water will follow. With a father who is highly environment-friendly and takes just two minutes to take bath with just two mugs of water and no touch of soap (all in the name  of being environment friendly of course) And a mother who loves emptying a whole tank of water on her in the name of shower and spends an hour easily, you know whom you have taken upon on in this department.

Oh, there is another department in which you have inherited me and I am so elated darling. You have a fine sense of taste, just like your mother. Ha ha. On your face daddy. Its your paatti's job to give you your daily dose of vitamin drops and you insist on taking it drop by drop, tasting every drop, licking your lips clean with your tiny pink tongue. Your paatti enjoys seeing that. While a granny gets to give the modern english medicine, modern young mother is tasked with giving the traditional urai marunthu. And the faces you make for drinking urai marunthu goes from curiosity to utter disgust. When you were around two months old, one afternoon I was raiding the fridge for a snack and found a guava. You Heyed me for company then and I skipped, hopped and jumped towards you, well actually ambled towards you, and sat next to you relishing my snack. You started smacking your little lips, drooling all over. From then on, whenever anyone eats anything with a strong aroma, you go drooling and smacking your lips. I keep telling your father that pretty soon you're gonna snatch food from our hands and stuff it in your mouth. Along with your fine sense of taste, you also have a fine sense of smell. How else can I explain my suddenly obtained ability when I was pregnant with you to perfectly name the dish that is being cooked two streets away and can give a live commentary on the ingredients that are being added ? Now that you're born, I am back with my own perfectly normal sense of smell that makes me browse in the mobile peacefully, standing near the stove that's burning the day's meal.


Did I mention that you must have inherited this fine taste and craving for food from your mom? I am so happy dear. You know why? During the early days of the marriage, I wanted to impress your dad with my skills of cooking multi-cuisines. So one day, I told him that perhaps I can cook once in a while as outside food is boring and sent him to work with the promise of making a rich dinner. I browsed high and wide and decided on an Italian meal of pasta, brought out all the hard-to-get-in-local-shops ingredients like penne pasta, italian herbs mix, toiled an hour cooking it and two hours cleaning the kitchen. Your dad comes home, I serve it on a plate complete with garnishing, he tastes, makes a weird face and asks if we can have dosa with coconut chutney. Oh boy! After that day, I resorted to making good old south indian food like idli, dosa, rice and roti(roti and gravies have become south indian long ago). Now I don't want you to know about the huge tantrum I threw after his sheer inability to appreciate the pasta. But that episode (the tantrum part of it) has made him appreciate even a cup of water that I graciously offer him when he pleads for it. Good man he is. So now you know why I am happy about you. Yes, I can try cooking variety of food again.

Even though you seem to prefer your paatti or your dad over me (Perhaps I shouldn't have cribbed about the aches and discomforts while carrying you), your bath and bed time totally belong to me and you won't do without me. Everytime I place you on the bath seat, you hold my finger with all of yours for a moment, your eyes seeking assurance that I will let no harm come to you and then proceed to relax and enjoy your bath.
At night, you you come to my lap, cling on to me, and we look at each other, no words, an eternity seems to pass away and one or both of us sleeps off. I place you in your cradle and move to my bed with a heavy feeling of longing for you.

We love you lots our baby TJ.