BEING A PARENT is just like going ice swimming for the first time.
You've seen people do it. You know you want it. You're ready for this. You've seen many people survive it. And then you jump in the water. Shock response occurs causing an uncontrollable gasp for air. Followed by hyperventilation and more rapid breathing. This may lead to ingestion of water causing possible drowning. Yup. Then you have to re-incarnate and become someone else you don't even recognise - A better person. True Story.
From my experience such are the qualities that take you away from the person you were. Embracing them is the only path to salvation.
Dab a little HUMILITY - Parents are humble people. They cannot be snobs or afford to be haughty or judgemental. The little tyrants bring it right onto them. A major lesson on humility. It can happen any time :). Uncle Murphy loves that. Anyone who has had an episode of a crying opera in the train or in the shopping mall will back me up on this. We don't judge. We don't tell tall tales of how 'mine has never done that'. That's because we don't know when they will arrange a mutiny against us. Usually that's done in public place, specially where people prefer silence. Like an embassy or an airport or any other place where we will feel the red dots of a million laser stares all over us.
Key to PATIENCE - Parents are patient people. We hold our horses and listen up. We wait and we wait for nature to take its due course. How can we be rushing? We wait 40 weeks to see the tiny little angel that will be the centre of our universe forever. We wait and cross our fingers and pray for our baby to latch on. If it doesn't happen, we cannot do much except the same thing. wait and try and wait and try. We, then patiently introduce the bottle, which is more than often vehemently rejected. Then we wait and try and wait and try. Then we introduce solids. You know why bibs were made. By the time, the baby is a year old, patience is in our DNA. If our child wants to take a gazillion hours to know what is 2+2, we give a gazillion hours to let him wrap his head around the fact. That's who we are now.
UPPING The Sense of Humor - I wouldn't necessarily be a happy person if I had a poop smeared face. But sometimes, even that can be a funny, stress relieving moment in the lives of new parents. We cannot be sullen and dull with children. They may not know where their toes are, but they certainly know when we are sad and anxious. Which is why it is of utmost importance for a healthy mother-child relationship for the mother to be relaxed and happy. They even prescribe meds for that if everything gets too overwhelming! We realise in the course of being a parent, that whatever is happening, it could be a lot worse in a lot less time because they are so so tiny, helpless and totally dependent on us. That's why- we the parents live in the moment, enjoy what we can, and see cuteness where the untrained eye may not!
BUCKLE UP and smell the ROSES - Ha! We don't even think of it that way! You gotta do what you gotta do. We wake up a million times in the night. We feed in public (I NEVER thought I'll be able to pull this one off). We sing in a horrifically high voice. We look silly and do silly imitations. We get smeared in poop. We lose our jobs. We lose our friends. We lose our ability to get a joke. We lose all our priorities. We never even think of it that way. Life is fun. We start appreciating the small little things much more. It's like God gave us a magnifying glass in our mental eye. We get awfully excited at the prospect of stepping out for grocery shopping. We look shamelessly proud when our son/daughter speaks her first word - "da-da". We become a show-off. We become "one-of-those" who cant shut up about their baby. We feel incredibly beautiful just by dabbing some lip gloss. We feel like on top of the world after 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
The trick is acceptance. Once you accept that you've had a baby and your life is going to swish in the direction of the wind of your child's mood swings. Once you accept that , everything follows easy. The moment of acceptance - that's the moment of magic. Its like the final moment before the rabbit comes out of the hat. You accomplish that- You're out of the water. You survived, everyone claps. You see some poor newbies going for a swim in the ice, you paste a grin and give them a BIG Thumbs Up sign!
