13. The Reward

 How much our life has changed!

Defying physics, that small 5kg thing now has the attraction of a blackhole. He has quickly become the center of our universe.

Life is slowly getting in terms with its new role, and we are enjoying every moment of it. The nappy changes are much easier than I thought. Even those greenish black sticky things did not feel like shit. Things like the changing colour (green to yellow) and texture (sticky to granular) of her potty actually made us happy. Never thought that even shit can bring so much joy. Someone rightly said, there is nothing bad in this world.

She is changing every day gifting us those precious ‘first’ moments. Slowly from a passive doll that could just eat, sleep and cry, she is becoming human.

She was 20 days old when smart lil Hridhima found out a new way to wake up when she was hungry. She grabbed her hair, pulled it, and started crying. 

Our daughter was born with a fair amount of hair on her head. While it made her look pretty, it was also a nuisance. There were times when we found her pulling her own hair and crying. Just a few months old, she had no command over her fingers. She would grasp anything she found near her, and her hair was one of them.

Quite like Abhimanyu from the Mahabharata, she knew how to grasp things but could not let go. In fact, she probably had no idea that the thing she wanted to pull and play with was attached to her. So, while she kept pulling it, she wondered why this damn toy was causing a painful sensation on her scalp. We had to help her let it go and get her baby gloves. Like all new parents, we freaked out about anything and everything that made her cry.

I wondered why she was doing that. Was she just playing or was that her way of communicating anger? 

After a bit of research, I found out that we were overthinking, something very typical of new parents of our species. What she was doing was just an involuntary grasping reflex and is common in babies. It is a vestigial memory from our primitive furry ancestors. This reflex ensured that the infants were clinging tightly to their mother’s fur while mommy was roaming around in the trees. The instinct had been encoded in our genes as an evolutionary survival mechanism that found no reason to get erased even after we lost our fur.

Her senses started to develop with time. We took her around letting her smell different fragrances, hear different sounds, see different things around.

Amongst all the things our white ceiling is her favorite. She can look at it all day making us wonder what’s so special about it. May be she would grow up to be a philosopher.

Soon she realized that she has a pair of hands. From that moment onwards all she wanted was to eat them. Those are her first toys, and what a wonderful toy they are, stupid adults can ever understand.

Apart from her hands and the white ceiling, she also began to recognize us. She now looks directly into our eyes, follows our movements, and wants to be with us. She hates being alone.

She also learned to talk. We talk a lot with her, read her books. And she reciprocates.

‎"aaangaaa aaagguuuuu aaaaiiiiii hnaaa"

>>>>English translation >>>

"Take me in your lap”.

All these changes as she grows are amazing, but the best gift she keeps giving us is her smile. She was almost a month old when she gave her first social smile. Those toothless smiles are heavenly; it makes you forget everything else. Oh! There she smiles again! Now I forgot what to write.