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I was going through the gazillion photos we have amassed in the recent months, and was at a loss how to begin ‘sorting them’. What struck me is that how far we have come in this short span.

Here’s the story in pictures.

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I was on the phone with a friend. She is into all this vision-mission kind of stuff, and very generous about sharing her learnings in life. It does get a little difficult to get her to see another perspective, but what I appreciate is her generosity in sharing all she has.

It was very rewarding to speak with her after many years. She is a teacher (ouch!) of the new style – more interactive, more experiential…. When she heard how involved I am with Nisarga – I’ve quit working mostly to be more with him, changed my work to what I can do while he is sleeping or otherwise engaged, I love spending time with him, I desire to support him the best I can in life, etc. She made a few very important suggestions.

One of them is what remains with me with overwhelming intensity. She asked me to have a ‘role model’ in my mind as what I would like my son to grow up into, and tell her about it. Such a person must be someone I respect and find inspiring.

For all my unschooling talk, my role model was the late Prof. Randy Pausch of the Carnegie Mellon University. A guy complete with a Ph.D. who did jobs, who taught students…. I think it thrilled her, till I described him further. I have met Dr. Randy Pausch exactly once, in a YouTube video. It is an hour long video of his lecture now famous as the last lecture.

I have never met him, and he is now dead. He died of cancer. So what is it in this man that a mother wants her child to grow into? It is his humanness. It is his passion, his determination, his generosity.

See for yourself:

Here is a link to the transcript if thus lecture that was seen by over six million people and continues to be an inspiration.

As I look at this dream for my son, I am forced to see that I must begin living it myself, if I have to bring it to reality. I am a better person for going through this ‘exercise’.

Okay, all the warnings are coming true.

The last two days, Nisarga has shown a distinct preference for being held, and will nap on me, but not if I set him down on his bed. The difference is, that its not the end of the world as predicted. I’m enjoying it. What more special experience than to have my child, my beloved son be so attached to me? What better compliment could a mother get?

I’d worry that something was wrong if my child was as okay with others or left alone as he was with me.

The more Nisarga grows up, and the more advice I get, the more I wonder about what is so wrong with the world? I have lived close to animals. I’ve lived under the sky with my herd of horses, I’ve lived with dogs, I’ve lived close enough to cows to see their idea of parenting, I’ve lived with village women who work in the fields with their babies in a sling on them. Feels good. Feels natural.

In the city, I have often encountered parents who apologize for their babies when they don’t want to come to me. Why? I wonder. Its a smart baby that doesn’t want to go to strangers. Try approaching a young filly when the mare doesn’t know you, and see how quickly you get run off by the mare and how the other horses in the herd take places around the mother and child pair. You are a stranger. The child is to be protected. It is simple. I understand the baby’s instinct completely and I respect him/her for being wise enough not to want to have anything to do with me without knowing me. I wonder at the parent who sees her child’s discomfort as inappropriate.

Where, as kids grow up, does this get lost?

I do introduce myself to children I meet, but really, its fine if they simply stare at me without approaching or approving of me in any way. I am absolutely delighted if my son takes his time to get comfortable with people. Everyone tells me that at the age of 6 months or so, he will start getting fussy about whom he interacts with. I see it as him growing up and getting smarter. I see nothing wrong with that, or feel any need to ‘prepare him’ by getting him used to being handled by lots of people.

Sure, that makes it important that I am available to him all the time. Isn’t that what motherhood is all about?

I see many parents outsourcing their parenting responsibilities, and then when their child grows up, they call him or her rude for not caring about them. Fact is, they do care. They did bond. It was just with the people the parents outsourced to. They did mourn their absence when they went out of their lives. However the parents themselves are not those people.

I don’t see anything as right or wrong. I only see that it is unrealistic to expect children to take on responsibility for relationships that never were. My child will learn from life itself. My teaching him will not be a special thing. My child will survive with what is provided and get used to that whether it is a life as a beggar or prince. Parenting is not about that either. If I want my child to care about me, I must care about him in ways I see as caring.

It is totally absurd that we expect our kids to not get too attached to the parents. What is this “too”? Is it even possible to get too attached to the sole stability in our life? What is wrong with this picture that we will leave crying toddlers in day care, send unwilling children to school, make them depend on strangers for their needs and then want them to maintain respectful, intimate, emotional relationships as adults when they don’t really need us?

To me, this means respecting him, caring for his physical comfort, caring for his emotional comfort, supporting his choices. And then I *may* hope that if in my old age I am bed ridden, he will use warm water to wipe my bottom in the winter and turn my bed to face the window and not wake me up from naps to give me baths at his convenience or send me to some day care or hospice for convenience in the name of competent care. What he will do will still be his choice, but what I expect will be more fair.

Nisarga is free to do what he likes. I am here for as long as he wants me.

I had hurriedly read through Dr. Aletha Olter’s site and recommended it earlier, but now, I think I need to revise my opinion of Aware Parenting and downgrade the status from definitely recommended to take with a pinch of salt. Heck upend the entire salt shaker on it.

Here’s the reason:

Important warning

There have been reported cases of infants smothering while sleeping in their parents’ bed, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission does not recommend sharing a bed with an infant. The danger of overlaying is highest during the first 3 months, and the danger of infants becoming wedged in a crevice is highest between 3 and 7 months. However, there are many reported deaths of infants sleeping alone in cribs. So wherever your infant sleeps, it is important to take safety precautions. If you sleep with your infant, the following bed sharing safety tips should be followed.

Bed Sharing Safety Tips

The following safety tips apply to anyone who shares a bed with an infant (not only the mother).

• Do not take any drugs that can affect your sleep (alcohol, tranquillizers, antidepressants, illegal drugs, etc.)
• Never smoke in the room where your infant sleeps.
• Use a firm mattress. Do not sleep with your infant on a soft mattress, or on a water bed, bean bag chair, or couch.
• Take precautions so your infant will not fall out of bed.
• Avoid crevices between your mattress and the wall or headboard.
• Never place your infant on a pillow.
• Always lay your infant on its back to sleep.
• Do not use a feather bed (duvet).
• Do not place any stuffed animals in the bed (or live ones!).
• Do not sleep with your infant if you are obese.
• Tie your hair back if it is very long.
• Do not let your infant share a bed with another child.
• Do not place your infant near curtains with dangling strings.
• Never leave your infant alone in an adult bed.

Huh? What’s that all about? Are we talking about a person or a product? I almost expected a disclaimer “No refunds will be provided if…..” US Comsumer Product Safety Commission now has an opinion on where you put your baby to sleep? And what is their authority on the subject?

Regardless, since I’m not a citizen of US, I’ll leave that battle to someone else, and instead take a look at what seems to be working just fine for us.

We sleep together – this baby and I. We are lucky to live in a culture that supports mother and child closeness in its early life so much, that if someone is to be kicked out of a mother’s bed, its more likely to be the husband than the child. There is no surprise what so ever that Nisarga and I cuddle together every night. And that’s exactly how we like it.

I have always thought that its a rather inconvenient (not to mention emotionally distant) practice to put infants to sleep away from their mothers. I feel its better for the peace of mind of everyone to be in ready access to each other, and I include the father in this. I can’t imagine Raka sleeping peacefully in bed with me with the baby elsewhere. We need that little guy right there as much as he needs to fidget and touch his mother or father if he wakes up. And we have lovely nights. He sleeps late (like us), but once he does, we are all out like a light – straight until morning.

In fact we all sleep so well, that the early recommendation of feeding every two hours was followed really badly by all concerned till we finally gave up on it – all the three of us. I can’t imagine the chaos of a baby coming fully awake from hunger and then getting all wound up with crying by the time I leave my room and go to his and attend him. Now, I just sleepily pull him closer, feed him, and we’re both out.

The recommendations on this list read really alien and grating to the instinct. Where would a baby be, if not in my bed? And if I don’t leave him alone in bed at all, what do I do? Sleep all day, or drag him along? And what is the age when I stop “sterilizing” him from life?

Tie your hair back if its very long? How in the world is it the business of anyone to recommend this as a safety tip? You think I wouldn’t notice if it strangles him or something? More so, that Nisarga wouldn’t notice it? He’s more likely to pull it off my head, which is a good reason to tie it up, but not really a safety thing surely….

The idea that a culture would allow a product related function to make recommendations on how to treat your baby says it all as far as I’m concerned.

It only gets worse when its endorsed by a website titled Aware Parenting!

With a baby, I’m re-discovering what I thought I was done with after the marriage – how difficult it is to come to a meeting of ways with people with different belief and value systems.

The new mother’s generosity and eagerness to share her magic with the world often leads to unwise choices where we make decisions that take things beyond out control. No one is to blame, yet everything goes wrong.

This cancelled celebration is a classic example. Its easy to sit here with “if onlys”. If only we had decided on a venue where a woman’s periods were irrelevant. If only I’d imagined that periods were a possibility. If only others had not found out, and I could simply get away with not telling anyone.

When deciding the venue, there were many choices, yet it was my choice to do it in the temple. I can’t blame anyone. I wanted his grandparents to share in the celebratory food as well, which they will not unless its cooked in a certain religious manner. I lost sight of the fact that the purpose was the celebration, and the rest were peripherals. I wanted it all.

So now, nothing.

The sad part of this is that both my husband and I are utterly allergic to religion. Raka believes that some vague God may exist, and I’m certain that there is no such thing. For us, the value in the temple was in the in-laws being able to eat.

Yet, in hindsight, we see that they are used to attending celebrations and coming home for meals, since they have accepted that the world doesn’t operate this way. They would have had the same joy in celebrating their grandson no matter where we did it.

There is no way we can do the function, since it would now offend them.

I am learning anew to make my decisions according to my objectives and stop accommodating peripherals. Yet, I don’t know. This is hindsight. Perhaps, not knowing something like this could happen, I might still make choices to accommodate the wishes of everyone?

Now I must get back to making sure all the countless people invited are asked not to come…. 🙁

For those who know, the get together we had planned for introducing Nisargak to friends and family has been cancelled due to “unavoidable reasons” <— read womanly business. Since the venue was a temple, that’s a no-go.

This really is a blow, since we were all looking forward to this function.

This officially marks the end of my trying to accommodate religious wishes into my celebration plans. There’s a time for worship, and its not necessary to make everything a puja, regardless of the wishes of the in-laws. The worst part is my husband and I are not into religion at all, and are now making calls to friends and family to tell them not to come…..

If you were planning on coming, our apologies.

I haven’t posted in a while, as I was busy with all kinds of stuff. Not easy being a mom-cum-businesswoman-cum-housewife-cum-webmaster. I’m not very good with prioritizing, and tend to forget about one thing when I become engrossed with another.

Coming to the sharing in this post, it was my birthday. For Nisarga, it was his mom’s first birthday.

We celebrated in a very special way – it was just the two of us at home. My mother-in-law was in Pune and so was my husband. Aakash went out somewhere in the evening, and my baby and I spent some time celebrating.

First, we watched the jamun tree outside the window for a while. Then, we put on some songs and danced. And finally, we had a laughing session.

Yesterday, hereally laughed out loud. Till then, he used to make sounds, but they were shaky and didn’t really sound like laughs. Yesterday, we laughed a lot and they sounded like laughs, and this guy found everything I did funny.

What a wonderful birthday gift!!!

Okay, this is what happened.

I was sitting at the computer, working on this site with Nisarga behind me fast asleep. I realized he was awake when I heard his usual shout “aaae”. I turned around and spoke with him, and he responded with a huge grin. I could literally see the bulb light in his mind that he can call me.

The more I spoke, the more thrilled he was. Huge grins, cooing, laughing out loud, the works. One happy excited baby. I immediately got my video camera out to record it.

Like any self-respecting baby, he chooses when to show-off, and this wasn’t it. The more I tried, the quieter he became. So I put the phone away, and took him out to the living room to his grandmother, thinking that he would once again start smiling with all the attention. His grandmother heard, and was delighted, and we spent another 10-15 minutes or so trying to get him to laugh. No go.

Finally, he started whimpering, and we realized that he was probably hungry. So I took him in, and fed him. He promptly fell asleep.

Then, as I was looking at the videos I’d shot, I realized that my lovely son had been signing milk all through, and the initial delight was not just about calling me, which he was doing quite consistently for a couple of days, but more likely because he thought he could ask for milk and mommy came to feed him. Alas, I imagine I’m teaching him, but guess who was the utter idiot in this episode?

I was so thrilled with his laughter, that I had missed the big picture staring in my face. My son was calling to me and asking for milk!!! No crying, nothing. Interaction. WOW!!!!!!

If I could just do it over, I’d pick him up and feed him immediately once our initial laughing was done so that he would indeed know that asking for milk would get him milk…..

Posting the tribute to my blindness

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPybBjew1a8[/youtube]

and…..
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaZJuhfbhWM[/youtube]