Like every other concern, this has been my wife's one of biggest concerns - our kiddo hasn't been able to crawl, neither by himself nor by any support. He is 9 months old now but in terms of certain physical activities he is running late by almost 2 months as compared to other babies of his age. To me, this is quite normal. In fact, I assume this isn't a matter of fitness, this is a matter of lazyness (like father like son). However, wifey thinks differently. To her, if anyone's baby in our acquaintance has been able to do any activity then Piku should also be able to do it.
Almost every other day, we would indulge in a conversation (read debate) where she would be doing her best to take a plunge into state of depression over lack of junior's competitive instincts, and I would be trying my best to counsel her. Our conversation would mostly be ended abruptly when she would accidently see the clock & say "Oh! Its time for Piku's meal." Surprisingly (& consistently), she notices time only when I'm about to win the argument.
So, this fine day, all of us were busy in our respective routine activities; wifey preparing meal for junior, me trying to watch TV & junior trying to pluck a bunch of hairs from my head. After sometime she came out from kitchen looking distraught; I hesitated for a moment & then asked "What happened?" "Our maid was telling that Mrs. Saxena's 8 months old daughter has started crawling; but our 9 months old son does not even sit properly." I immediately wished for two things: First - the moment of hesitation should've lasted for some more moments & I would've not asked the question. Second - a law should be passed banning all maids to pass information of one house to other.
"If I remember correctly, our maid was the person who told you that baby girls learn faster than baby boys; so don't worry." I said remembering the smirk on her face when she propagated this male-bashing statement to me.
"Yes, but that was 2 months back; and at that time it was matter of when Piku would be able to rollover; now it is about crawling." she snapped back.
"That doesn't make any difference. Anyways, that's not the point; all I want to say that don't worry; he will learn to crawl also whenever his body is ready." I responded.
"... but... the doctor also said that babies start crawling around 9 months" she mumbled.
"Honey, we've met more number of doctors for our son than the number of months he has seen on this planet, and all of them give a different age for different activities. If we try to draw a range, babies can start crawling at any age ranging from 6 to 12 months. So don't worry, he'll be alright" I tried again to soothe her.
"But why us, why our child had to be a slow learner?" she took a deep plunge in her depression.
"C'mon! He is not a slow learner, he has done somethings pretty earlier than other babies. Don't you remember he gave us his first smile within 3 weeks" I tried to highlight the positive side; and for a moment it seemed to work because I saw the effects of remembrance of a good memory on her face. Without waiting for her to speak again, I added another piece of my wisdom "You see every child is different... like every other child". My advice to guys - never ever end your sentence with an assertion when you're in discussion with your better half. That will start a brand new discussion.
"I don't like your tone when you do that" she retorted.
"What tone?" I tried to bring innocence in the scene.
"The tone in your voice when you spoke your last statement" she gazed at me.
"I was just reminding you of Piku's first smile, how can my tone possibly be bad while talking about something beautiful like that" I smartly tried to skip my assertion.
"No, that was not your last statement. The one where you mentioned about every baby being different than every baby... or something like that" she stuck to her point.
"What? Oh that.... whats wrong with that? Isn't that true?" I edged deeper into the mud.
"Yes, that is true; but why do you've always to put such statements?" she spoke with anger increasing in her voice.
"No, I don't do that; this is first time I ever gave a statement; and that too a right one" I spoke forgetting completely the original point of discussion.
"Fine!" she announced.
Another word of advice to guys - if your better half speaks a sentence that has just one word "Fine", then that means nothing is fine (or anywhere near being fine); and anything you say after this would be a punishable offense.
However, I entirely forgot the piece of advice I just gave above & said "Fine? What is that suppossed to mean? (like I didn't know). That is not even correct response to my sentence." another bad move.
"I don't want to talk to you on this anymore. Besides, its time for Piku's meal" she ended the discussion.
" OK" I spoke and then we realized that Piku, for whom this whole discussion was taking place, was not in the place where we left him. Irritated with our talks, he was crawling towards the door....
Shunting between Indore & Lucknow
Last 4 weeks have been pretty hectic for me. There were couple of marriages in my family @ Lucknow, separated by a week's duration. First was for my brother & second was for my brother-in-law. Needless to say, I couldn't afford to miss my brother's marriage and couldn't dare to miss my wife's brother's marriage :)
To complicate the matters further, both the marriages were accompanied by few ceremonies starting a couple of days prior to the D-days & lasting a couple of days afterwards. The total duration of ceremonies was spanning across a period of 3 weeks. To add even more spice to my problems, a couple of my brother-in-law's ceremonies were planned at Rae Bareli (nearly 80 kms from Lucknow).
That means that now there were 2 dimensions to my troubles - time & distance (you might feel as if you're reading about some problem from high school physics).
From time perspective I had two choices: first - take leaves for 3 weeks & enjoy; second - take leave on the days of ceremonies only & move back & forth between Indore & Lucknow. Of course, the former option was out of scope because I couldn't get leave for 3 weeks for even my own marriage; so I had to stick to the latter.
From distance perspective - Indore's train connectivity is very poor, so every time I had to go to Bhopal via taxi (200 kms) & then catch train to Lucknow, and then take bus route for Rae Bareli. In fact, during my last journey from Rae Bareli to Indore; I made use of almost all kinds of mechanical public transportation available. It included bus, taxi, train, cycle rickshaw, auto and city cab. Thankfully, none of my routes involved bullock carts!
My final itinerary had me shunting between Indore & Lucknow every 3-4 days. Typically if someone at Indore asks me "what are you doing this weekend?"; I reply "Nothing as such, just going to watch the upcoming movie"; but during last few weeks I would reply "Nothing as such, just going to Lucknow".
To complicate the matters further, both the marriages were accompanied by few ceremonies starting a couple of days prior to the D-days & lasting a couple of days afterwards. The total duration of ceremonies was spanning across a period of 3 weeks. To add even more spice to my problems, a couple of my brother-in-law's ceremonies were planned at Rae Bareli (nearly 80 kms from Lucknow).
That means that now there were 2 dimensions to my troubles - time & distance (you might feel as if you're reading about some problem from high school physics).
From time perspective I had two choices: first - take leaves for 3 weeks & enjoy; second - take leave on the days of ceremonies only & move back & forth between Indore & Lucknow. Of course, the former option was out of scope because I couldn't get leave for 3 weeks for even my own marriage; so I had to stick to the latter.
From distance perspective - Indore's train connectivity is very poor, so every time I had to go to Bhopal via taxi (200 kms) & then catch train to Lucknow, and then take bus route for Rae Bareli. In fact, during my last journey from Rae Bareli to Indore; I made use of almost all kinds of mechanical public transportation available. It included bus, taxi, train, cycle rickshaw, auto and city cab. Thankfully, none of my routes involved bullock carts!
My final itinerary had me shunting between Indore & Lucknow every 3-4 days. Typically if someone at Indore asks me "what are you doing this weekend?"; I reply "Nothing as such, just going to watch the upcoming movie"; but during last few weeks I would reply "Nothing as such, just going to Lucknow".
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