Promoted to Dad

My daughter is just a kid. I know it’s obvious and sounds kind of stupid written down. It’s not always obvious to me though. Kids have a lot of accidents. Ergo, so does my daughter. Spilt milk. Spilt food. Toys stuck under the sofa. Trinkets stuck between two sliding doors. Elbows unintentionally hitting noses. Feet accidently stepping on feet. My guess is, she averages one per day. I told her she averages two a week, and she thought I was inflating the number. I sometimes (maybe I’m being kind to myself a bit) give her a hard time when she does have an accident. I look down using my height advantage, and give her a condescending look.  I say something on the lines of ‘accident again huh?’. Usually she has this sheepish, apologetic look, and nothing else is said. However today her true feelings came out. She’s been thinking about this during the course of the day. “You know accidents happen”, she says. If I’m doing something bad on purpose, then you can blame me. A fe...

Last night we went out for dinner with some friends. It was a long day and we had to drive for 45 minutes to reach the restaurant. My daughter was a bit sleepy by the time we ordered dinner and it seemed like an ordeal for her to go through dinner. She did perk up when server asked if we’d like to order dessert. Of course, being my girl, she wanted cheesecake. However, by the time the cheesecake arrived, my daughter had put her head down on the table and gone to sleep. We asked for the cheesecake to be put in a box. My daughter slept through the car ride home. Soon we were all tucked in and were in lands far far away. Now at 3.15 a.m., my daughter wanted to use the restroom. We get a knock on the door as she wanted to be tucked back in. I get ‘voluntold’ to get up. I tuck her in. She closes her eyes, and is about to sleep, when she suddenly opens her eyes wide! ‘Papa! There was a cheesecake!’. I smile and respond, ‘Yes. It’s in a box in fridge’. ‘Oh. Okay’. It then ta...

I think maybe we have too many rules for my daughter. On the other hand, we do make exceptions, and I think this is making her a great negotiator. Why? I think a good negotiator is one who’s faced with many rules (example: “This is the price, take it or leave it”), and understands that all ‘rules’ can be challenged. Of course, the caveat being, this only applies to rules made up parents, teachers, bosses, clients etc., not to rules made up by the courts and parliaments! Now, we may be wrong in having so many rules for her, and we also may be wrong in making exceptions. Maybe I’ll read parenting blogs about that and maybe I won’t. I do want to dive into the negotiation topic a bit more though. Lets take an example. She gets thirty minutes of screen time everyday. This can be TV, some apps/games on a tablet, or even a phone. This also includes any educational app! My daughter loves to read, and is also mandated (more rules) by her teacher to read. She never breaks this rule, because...

As I was changing her clothes yesterday, she shivered and said, ‘ooh I’m cold’. Of course, there was only one thing for me to say. Hi Cold, I’m dad. She laughed. A loud and genuine laugh. She then said, ‘That was a good one papi. You haven't told me that joke for a while’. What she left unsaid were two things. One, I’ve cracked similar jokes before. Two, more importantly, they are funny when not repeated for a long time. Alas, I don’t think I have much time with my dad jokes still making her laugh, but I’ll take whatever laughs I can get. It reminds of a time when I could laugh as openly.

One day, I’m back after a long day at work. My wife isn’t around. I’m trying to feed my daughter. She’s taking a painfully long time to chew her food. This is something she can do if she doesn’t feel like eating. She can keep the food in her mouth and not chew. You get stuck. You can’t tell her to open her mouth, because she’s got food in her mouth. You can’t keep waiting forever either, because either you’ll sit there all night or you’ll quit but not feed her enough. Now I know one school of thought is to let her go hungry for this meal, and she’ll not trouble in future, but I didn’t go to that school. So I hear myself telling her every few minutes, “chew”. “chew chew” It almost works a few times before it fails. I find myself getting angry and almost like an army sergeant yell, “Chew Chew Chew!” My daughter says, “That's a train!” You win some, you loose some. Note to daughter: You’ll have a kid someday. She/He’ll have your genes too!

Sometimes you hear yourself say something before you realize what you said. I really want my daughter to grow up at a normal pace. In fact my wife and me belong to that set of parents that worry that our daughter would grow up too soon and leave us. We won’t get to love her enough. Still, this is what I hear myself say: Me: “Grow up!” Daughter: “How?” Me: “Just stop behaving like a baby” Now like I said, I’m in no hurry for her to grow up. She’ll grow up when she will. But I thought these were great words to learn from myself. Then I got thinking about another tale that we tell her. Whenever she falls down, slips, bites a lip, or finds one of innumerable ways to hurt herself, we tell her, never mind, when you get hurt you grow up a little. What I realized is that these are really the only two ways that I “grew”. One, when I got hurt. Two, when I found myself in a spot where I decided to stop behaving like a baby. Take your time honey. There are enough gr...

Wasn’t it yesterday that we, new to a developed (at least comparatively) country, went to Ikea to buy your cot? We came home, 2 years ago, carrying a cot, a little mattress, a couple of cute, pink, fitting sheets, teething rails, a tiny pillow a couple of tiny pillow covers. I came home and got to work on the contraption, living up to “ Mr. Fixit ” again. Like most Indian parents we’re a little over protective and a little smothering. Don’t blame us when you grow up, you’re Indian too and you’re quite clingy. We’re the opposite of parents who might agree to the Ferber method. Therefore, the cot was installed in our room and you slept there till two days ago. As I dismantled the cot today, I realized that for me, the retiring of Tendulkar and Tata had no meaning, but you sleeping in your own room on your own bed signified the end of an era. I realized that even though I was a bit relieved that the parents had their room back again, I missed you. However, more than that, I ex...