A father’s choice
brought to you byCindy D’Silva
My husband and I dated for three years before he decided to pop the question. The forces around us had to throw various situations at us to finally make us believe we were meant to be married to each other. The smart me already knew we were meant to be together but men will be men. They need a whole decade to gather themselves and prepare for a monotonous life with restrictions. Then, when they finally agree to a commitment, they are not only terrified to death, but their heart skips a beat with a mere mention of having kids later. Not that I entertained the idea either, at the time, but then again, it did not petrify me in any way.Similarly, as the families required it, we had an official engagement ceremony. My husband was as nervous as a kitten. Probably, if we left him to take his time, he would have jumped through the window and run away. He lived on the ground level. All through the ceremony, he kept blushing until his cheeks were red. As we had invited only close friends and family, he was teased quite a bit. It was a sight to see. In all the years of courting, and all the years of marriage thereafter, I had never seen him glow as much as he did on the day we were engaged to be married.
Then, we had our first child, a girl as sweet as an angel.Teary eyed, we looked down at her. Our happiness was way beyond our understanding. Though we were parents from the day she was born, we could not digest that information until she began smiling up at us. Neither of us had any clue on how to bring up a child. Of course, there were a lot of free advice served to us, as people love to frighten new parents more than they already are!
We were told that we had to squeeze the baby's nipples to allow all the ‘leftover fluids' to get out. We were told to keep the baby in one position when she slept so that her head does not become round. We were told that our baby needed a vigorous massage so that her limbs became strong and straight.
Being me, I disregarded many of the ‘instructions' given without a reason I found sense in. I am a true believer of my sixth-sense. Many a times, I have gone against it, and regretted it. So, if I am not content with something I have been asked to do, I won't do it, or I do it with an extremely heavy heart because not everyone understands or wants to understand how you feel or about your sixth-sense, for that matter.
One of the free advices given to us was that the baby should not be kept in plastic diapers all day as she would be hot and develop infections. I put forth a simple question and asked which of them were going to wash my baby's cloth diapers all day because I did not have the time or patience to do that. When none were too enthusiastic to work for my baby, I did what had to be done, myself. I bought plastic diapers. My husband, on the other hand, was interested in how I cared for our baby. He wanted to be a part of the whole process right from bathing her to changing her diapers. Some people said it wasn't a father's job to do this while some admired the fact that he was interested in helping with our baby because her overall development and involvement of both the parents is vital from the start.
#Ittakes2
