Boyzone

“At least he doesn’t have to wax, unless he turns out to be one of those metrosexual cleavage-flaunting weirdos,” I thought and sighed, amid cries of “Congratulations, it’s a healthy baby boy!” at Breach Candy hospital, where I was attended to by an all-boy doctor squad. Since I was rooting all along for a girl, in this column and otherwise, I was a tad disappointed. The husband however made me see the brighter side. “Now you have two men to bash in your column instead of one,” he said. Ah well, we’ll see. Anyway, the bloke has inherited my curly mop and my cleft chin, so that’s reassuring, I thought.

J however made me feel better about the new Y chromosome in my life. “Look at it this way. The good looking guys get the girls, the nerds get the good jobs. He sure has the looks, and he will have the intelligence, at least genetically, unless he screws it up by not reading, or some such. So he will get the girls and the jobs. That’s a win-win. Plus, you don’t have to worry about the hymen.”

Shudder. I never thought of a girl so metaphorically, but he had a point. “Believe me, if she is pretty, the day she steps out in those short skirts, you’ll start having them palpitations, and make dagger eyes at all within vision,” he further explained. He also believes that for a girl, not getting a prom date (God forbid) leaves a deeper scar than a boy not making it to the school football team. Trust J to always come up with a gender theory for everything.

His theory, and it suits me fine, is that since it’s a boy, the job of making him a man is not mine—all I have to do is see him through infancy, and then it’s up to the father. So whether it’s football or cricket practice, archery, or whatever is cool then, it’s not my responsibility, so that’s kind of cool.

Although I’d rather his elegant fingers pick up guitar strings or a paint brush, rather than a Play Station controller, it’s a risk I have to live with. “At least there’s 50% of me, so it can’t be all that bad,” is my only consolation to myself. But each day, as we (father, son, and I ) do family time, I am constantly wondering whether the ambient sounds of Elder Scrolls Oblivion (the husband’s latest PS3 addiction) is going to subliminally corrupt the mind of the infant.

The simple fact is, every boy wants to be exactly like his father or exactly unlike him. Both ways, the dad is a great role model. We’ll see. At least that’s what they call having your boy and having you too.

Yours, hormonally

Yes, I’m back, and no, motherhood hasn’t mellowed me, much to the disappointment of some and sundry. It’s as though they expected me to acquire this ‘touch me not’ aura that new moms seem to cultivate, avoid expletives and questionable language (one of my friends who can only speak sentences that begin and end with the f… word told me he stopped using it for a year after becoming a parent), and turn all soft and somber, chuckling only at baby-related things. Sorry, but that isn’t happening, although I find my little boy Rehaan quite amusing, as he alternates between his Manoj Kumar pose and his Rahman pose.

Which is why this column is not turning into ‘Mumwit’ any time soon and I am not going to be writing about the different hues of poop or the nine ways of tying a nappy, or burping a baby or interviewing a maid, neither am in going down the clichéd yummy mummy road.

Two weeks post my turning mom, people in my universe are surprised when they find me taking calls, reading while nursing, shopping, cooking, answering emails, logging onto facebook, uploading pictures, changing status messages, lustily rooting for Roddick with my baby in tow, while the whole world (including the husband) went ga ga over Federer. I reason it out in my head by thinking, “As long as I am performing my mommy duties, there’s no harm entertaining myself on the side, is there? After all, I have a life!”

Their reactions range from shock to disbelief. “What? You are up and about?,” said one who came to the hospital.

“I can’t believe you answered the phone,” said another. So dude, why exactly did you call me.

“What’s a good time to visit?,” is another common enquiry. Well, I am still figuring that one out, but if you can come and hang in there, or entertain me while I perform my motherly duties, you are more than welcome, any time of day or night.

“Motherhood has not mellowed you one bit,” remarked a third, on my acidic response to a comment on facebook. No, and why should it?

Blame it on the hormones. Fortunately for me, the feel-good ones took over. So oxytocin and prolactin and more estrogen won over corticotrophin and the other bad guys, and as my uterus shrinks back to normal, here I am, feeling bouncy, with no visible signs of post partum blues exactly two weeks after birthing. (My poor mom! Her last chance to sober me down has also gone down the drain.)

My point is, I would have the benefit of doubt even if I was feeling any other way. Like my best buddy J says, “Hormones are a girl’s best friend.” What makes hormones such a great thing is that they tend to legitimize every conceivable state of mind—a privilege that men don’t have—and this unfortunately, is a conversation I cannot have with my little boy for a long, long time.

Picture imperfect

There are two things I find very hard to get excited about—other people’s photographs and other people’s babies. Or worse, photographs of other people’s babies.

Okay, I am not one of those baby haters. Neither am I the bra-burning feminist types (is that still a term?). It’s just that I never know what is the right thing to say when I see a baby. The last time I was in close contact with one, I said something like, ‘Don’t you think she has her father’s jaw line and her mother’s cheeks?” The beau gently nudged me to speak softer, hinting that the ‘baby’ might not be too pleased to hear it.

So now I just reserve my comments to “He/she is so adorable…” It always works.
The baby visit ceremony is a mostly a to-be-done thing, especially if the person concerned is a good friend, and more so if she has spent a good part of her pregnancy moaning about tight bras and breaking wind… People who have babies always want you to come and ‘see the baby’. I have never understood why. Are they expecting you to tell them, “I like what you made.” Would you ever tell them, “Well, you should have another go, this one hasn’t turned out as I imagined….”

Last year, my friend had one, and at the hospital, I was actually wondering why she still looked pregnant, even though the baby was technically out. I was severely admonished by another friend for thinking such insensitive thoughts. I seriously have to pick up some politically correct phrases.

And then is the whole ordeal of baby pictures. I used to live in a hostel, where by default, the women seemed to follow the same biological clock—one by one, they all got married, and most of them had babies soon after. And then began the onslaught of baby pictures— the baby’s first diaper, first tooth, the first thing it put in his mouth, the first time it sat, or stood or burped or farted, or spoke…..and later, first stage play, first karate class, first swimming medal, first work of art or some such.

I can hear my friends saying, “Wait till you have one…” Well, we’ll see.
A close second is wedding pictures. For starters I can never understand the throne thing and the queuing-up-to-wish-the-bride-and-groom-and-taking-a-picture-with-them. In my barometer of uncool, this figures the highest. Why do we have to go through it? I have had many a fun conversation with others in queue, and everyone has the same problem. So why don’t they all just go on strike and say, “We will not be demeaned like this…”

Wait, it doesn’t stop there. Because soon after, the bride or groom will send you a couple of really fat files containing “the wedding albums.” Now, what were they thinking? “Err..in case you missed looking like a complete moron on our wedding, you can see what others looked like….”
Gimme a break..

There are people who know exactly the right thing to say at births, deaths and weddings. I have come to realise that I am not one of them.