Deeply in love… with babies

With aging comes consciousness, with consciousness comes experience… if this order is correct, then my present state of mind is justified. Precisely, it’s been 10 months since I became baby conscious.

Until then, this particular category of being just didn’t exist or rather was to be ignored. Random couples canoodling on the pavements or a chivalrous man walking arms wrapped around his girlfriend managed to grab my attention even when trapped in snail-paced traffic.

These were also the occasions for me to have light-hearted arguments with my husband over his reluctance to indulge in PDA. Yeah, I am all for PDA (if done within limits). But my husband is the traditional type for whom romantic overtures are best done behind closed doors…

Coming back to the point: babies. Call it hormonal imbalance that occurs post pregnancy and the still insistent hormones that want you to fall in love with these crawling, forever-crying souls, I am in love with all kinds and types of babies. The one-month difference in my liking and delivery is intentional and factual. The first month post delivery went in getting me accustomed to wiping and cleaning my little angel who was liberal in those matters. That left me with little time and patience to be eying other babies.

But now the scenario has changed, right from the dirt-smeared thin and lanky unkempt baby playing unattended on the road to the diapered, expensively attired, chubby toddlers…  The untimely demands and unrestrained full volume cries that occur regularly within jam-packed trains or shopping malls don’t irritate me; instead, to my utter surprise, they bring a smile to my face. What the tear-jerking blockbuster Taare Zameen Par couldn’t do then is easily managed by the mere sight of a malnourished kid begging on the street.

My husband terms this as the awakening of the maa ki mamta… Whatever it is, the feeling is different and a kind of stress buster. The mere mention and thought of my little one right when I have a deadline to meet puts me at ease. Another positive aspect of having her is that I look forward to being at home.

The sight of her jumping in joy and breaking into bouts of laughter with an eagerness to come into my arms acts as an immediate pain reliever — a potent drug that has no side effects and is instead laced with unconditional love… a hard thing indeed to find in present times and perhaps the reason for the change in me.