Baby Baby Baby!

April 5th that’s the day I had been eagerly waiting for many weeks. All to welcome a 3 month young pretty-ugly lady “Meghana”.

I first met her when she was about 10 days old. Her tiny finges, big eyes, hairless head, leak from her small mouth, purple lips, round nose and conspicuous fleshy cheeks all were way too enchanting. First time i got to hold her, it was an experience of life time, It would be bit surprising to know but she is the first baby I got to take in my arms (things were easy because she was wrapped in a bag like soft bedding). I held her with stiff hands, her slimy movements scared me a little but then she was safe in the confinement of the bag (must say an wonderful piece of innovation, cheers to the fabricators). In a little while I felt comfortable holding her and slowly enjoyed the process of trying to make her ummmmmmmm I don’t know what to term it..maybe “happy”

When I got the news that the little girl’s family is moving into our apartment complex, I was extremely thrilled. I was mentally planning, talking, strategizing on what to do with her. You know it’s not all that easy to figure out what to do with babies, trust me if you pick up a paper n pen and try jotting down stuff you can do with a baby, chances are you wouldn’t need any ink at all. As the days closed in, my mind was programming and re-programming the algorithms to handle her. I did talk to my mom on few ocassions during that period, discussing ways to entertain babies, still greek and latin but then I had a chance to learn it. Luckily for me mom is an expert with babies, right from early days I seen her magically bind with babies as if she could communicate with them. I got few tips from her, re-programmed few things and then the big wait for April 5th.

It was 11am and she hadn’t arrived yet, my anxiety was growing and finally after a painful wait, the young lady arrived with her mom and immediately broke into a huge a cry. After a 30 minute pause I was finally allowed to see her. She was lying in the bed in a world of her own, doing strange things, stuff flowing from her mouth, arms moving at random and eyes scanning every bit of the room. As I sat next to her I didn’t know what to do. pressed her nose, tickled her tiny fingers, rubbed her cheeks and that went on for a while before luck shone on me. I got to man her. I was left alone to guard her and maybe put her to sleep.

Excited with the opportunity at hand, I put in my best effort. singing rhymes, making strange sounds, clapping, waving, mimicking, pulling her fingers, pressing nose as usual, tried everything I could but then she didn’t look amused. She has glaring all around like a moron least interested in the monkey infront of her trying hard to catch her attention. I wasn’t deterred by the little ladies disinterest I kept trying, then all of sudden she there was big sneeze, leak all over her nose. I was holding her so couldn’t get my hands out to wipe her nose (In any case it was too cheesy to touch). what I see, she made few wild movements, gave a you-are-supposed-to-clean-it look and wiped her nose with her hand in a jiffy. All this happened in a blink an eye, It appeared as if she wanted to slap me for my bad show. After a little more struggle she was getting tired of me and her eyes stared to dim and slowly got into sleep mode.

An experience to remember. I sincerely hope to improve my baby sitting skills with time, now that I get more access to her, I get time to experiement ways to charm little girls. One thing I realised right in my stint is “It’s a really really tough job fellows” hats off to all the mommies.