What has Parenting taught me?

A lot of my friends who don't have kids yet have asked me - so what is it to have a kid. Really what is it? To me, it was a lot of fun and a life changing monumental phenomenon and now of course, I can't imagine my life without R. Friends who know me and A, know that we love to travel, we had a pretty much swinging life style we would take off to places, travel, hike, bike, party and most importantly play tennis. We have moved six times in our seven years of marriage (that has gotta be something right?). We backpacked in Europe, led a student life, lived on fast foods and our moves would be just boxes and boxes of books and clothes (Ohh let me not forget my shoes!) Every time we moved A would frown a little, as I packed my shoes and ask me so when are you really going to wear this pair. Through post doc salary, guest houses, dorm like apartments and our old beaten car, we saw the world and loved every minute of our pre-R days and of course we are loving every second of parenting as well just in a very very different way.

The most important thing my little one has taught me is to be patient, I cannot do things at my own pace now, it has to be his pace or really no pace at all, because he has the ability to stop my whole world. R has had a very strong personality right from day one. He somehow decided he wasn't going to take a bottle and he never did; tons of therapists, all the advices from friends and well wishers and me reading 'n' number of books didn't help one bit; he decided he was not going to crawl until he was 10 months old and he didn't; he decided he wanted to walk exactly when he was 12 months old and he did. We couldn't believe that he was walking solid in 2 days, he was so cautious that he hardly fell, he did a magnificent balancing act on his one year birthday by climbing a step up and down on our patio and impressed everyone at his birthday party.

He has also helped me acquire a lot of absolutely useless knowledge about pregnancy/infants/ and now toddlers. I have also mastered completely useless skills like wearing socks on R when is upside down or sometimes running or climbing, balancing R in one hand and putting on my work makeup, feeding R and having my breakfast/dinner at the same time, singing, dancing and entertaining R while cooking something healthy for him etc etc... I have developed a split personality these days, some days I am happy going to work and having my peace and quiet for 8 hours and then I have days when R hugs me and says "Bish Bish" which means "sit" in Marathi and wants me to play with him - Working Mother syndrome I call it. I have really never known what's best for us (me and Rohan), being together 24*7 or being apart and spending quality time together. Monday mornings are specially tough because R gets used to us for 2 days and I cannot wait to go back to work for some rest! :)

That's my little guy folks, put us through a world of things; I can't believe my swaddled little bundle of 7 pounds is 35 inches tall, runs and climbs everything in sight, talks and talks and talks, sings, wiggles his way out of our arms and blows us multiple kisses....Ohh they do really grow up fast!