Love you tender

Among the very few things I remember from my Hons. in English at post-graduation was this one discussion that because man invented language, very often words that might describe what a woman feels can be inadequate. As an example I remember the teacher said, like if a woman forgets to get milk for her baby, there's really no word in this man-made language of ours that might be able to aptly explain her guilt.

I'm only beginning to understand a bit of what that discussion was all about.

There's nothing specific that has sparked off this thought. Every time I see another baby in a movie or something, I want to go and kiss mine on his forehead.

I wish I knew how to love him more.

But when he's awake, and I'm with him everyday, every minute of his waking time, I don't always feel that way.

Perhaps, it's like any other relationship.

I don't get along with my dad. Well, that's very simply put. He's just never been important. You have to do the "umms" and the "aahhs" with him on the phone, before he too gets uncomfortable and yells out to my mom to come and speak to me.

And yet when the other day my brother called to tell me that our dad had contracted something called chikungunya and that he had spent most of that day throwing up, not being able to make sense of anything around him, and that he was finding it difficult to walk, sit, or lie down etc., I felt the tears prick my eyes. Predictably.

It's worse when you're not with them and they insist on living in a small town which has no medical facilities, and where you still can't (in the 21st century) reach through a direct flight or train from Delhi.

Anyway.

Perhaps, the mother-child relationship is like any other relationship -- you miss it when it's sleeping/away-on-a-work-trip, but as soon as you have it, you can't look beyond the details, the stress, the baggage.

Yet, this is one relationship rife with so much judgment, so many expectations, and therefore so much guilt if you, god forbid, don't want to spend every single waking minute with your child.

I love him to bits when he's sleeping peacefully in his cot, but I try to stall starting my day because I know how routined it's going to be.

I wish I could be more like N. Not worry about struggling to put a diaper on him as he runs around and just be able to enjoy my time with him. Not stress that he eats one single spoonful of his food and then throws the rest on the floor, and just have fun throwing him up in the air and hearing that magical baby laugh.

I swear, every day I think, I'm going to love him more today, and by the time I have him sitting on the pot for his morning routine, I have given up on my promise.

The lady who takes care of him at the creche had been telling me to send him for the full day on the two days a week that he goes. I had been hesitating. Then finally I spoke to the lady who owns the creche and she told me what my in my heart I was already saying, "spend time with your baby, spend all the time you have right now. You never know when circumstances change".

I swear, I will love him more tomorrow.