Sorry, I Sneaked into my Daughter’s Diary

Yesterday I was relaxing and daydreaming about my life many years ahead, and I could conjure up startling things. And I thought why not utilize this short-lived blessing and future-sneak into my daughter’s diary. Here is what I got to read:

‘Funny Daddy’
Date: 06.Sept.2022

I have a funny dad. No, not that he cracks jokes all the time, or has a funny face, but he is funny due to peculiarity in everything he does. But, be warned, he is a serious kind of man who would wail warm tears if he knew I had flunked in social studies, or have a boyfriend; though, I have none.

Now I’m going through this family album and, look, here, in this photograph dad is standing on a hillock with a stick in his hands and looking pensively towards south-east whereas the photographer had been pointing at him from south-west.
You got my point? No?

Let me show you another photograph. No, not this one, because here he is posing in a fearful grimace squatting next to a black dog, and I don’t like it.

Here it is!
A photograph of mom and dad together. Both seated on a sandy beach. Mom smiling full-faced at the photographer, whereas daddy pensively looking down at the ice-cream melting onto his hand, giving an expression that he could have bought other flavour instead.

In fact, if you go through our entire family album, my dad never seems to have fun. He never seems to enjoy life.

In fact, if you go through our entire family album, my dad never seems to have fun. He never seems to enjoy life.

Nowhere in the entire album he could be seen jumping high into the sky with all his limbs outstretched as far as possible, or skydiving with a raised thumb, or making those rockstar-fingers at the camera. Everywhere he is like a hard boiled egg dropped out of oblivion.

But the truth is: he is humble, yes he is. Like when we have a guest at home he would yell at my mom, ‘Get one tea!’ and continue the conversation with a confidence that my mom would meekly obey and bring a nicely brewed tea. However, when we don’t have guests around, he would ask mom, ‘My dearest, could you please make a tea for me?’
So you see, he is humble.

And he is honest. Like yesterday morning he woke up and went straight to the mirror and started feeling his teeth with the tip of his finger. When I asked him what he was up to, he replied, ‘Nothing, just had a fist fight in a dream last night.’ So he is honest, too.

Then he is fun loving. Surprised? But he is. I swear! Like only yesterday he came slouching into the drawing room and told mama something in the ear and she started laughing like a drain, and daddy sat there glancing foolishly at her. And when she didn’t stop laughing, he got up and said, ‘It wasn’t a joke!’ and fled the scene. So you see, he is funny. Isn’t he?

But I don’t care how he is. He is my daddy, and that is enough reason for me to love him.
He is calling me, so I’ve got to go.
See ya!

***

This future-sneak into my daughter’s diary made me proud of her. But right now she is about to turn one and half, and has been working extremely hard at her writing.
Here is what she wrote yesterday:

You liked that? I knew, you would.

Pen, Blog & Diapers

My daughter is no ordinary girl. She is barely nine months and she loves to read and write already. The other day, she crawled to the farthest side of the bed where my pen, magazine, and journal were idling. She picked up the pen, smiled a defiant smile, and gobbled half of the pen into her tiny mouth and started grazing over it. I held her and forced the pen out of her mouth. Luckily, the pen was intact.

I hurriedly kept her on the bed and started cleaning my beloved pen. This is when I discovered my daughter’s talent for reading. Giggling, stuttering she crawled again to the other end, picked the magazine, stared at the anti-acne ad, and with a single swoop of her right hand split the page into two and started chewing it. I thumped her back and made her spit the page. Then I thanked almighty that it was magazine, not my journal, that she intended to read; for there were things written in it that I didn’t want her to read so soon.

***

It is 5:30 in the morning and my both hands are busy at work. With the left I’m rocking the cradle in which my tiny tot is drowsing like a cub; with the right I’m scribbling these words in my daily journal. It is still dark outside and, yes, I’ve not turned on the lights as my cub finds it dauntingly uncomfortable to sleep with the lights on. So I sit close to the cradle, turn on the portable study lamp by my portable writing desk and begin to write.

My entire body is wobbling as my left hand is busy at the cradle; therefore, the fonts of my handwriting resemble an ancient script still hidden beneath the layers of earth. But rocking the cradle I don’t feel any annoyance, and my alien fonts also don’t bother me. The words are slowly pouring into the empty lines.

Day after day I hope for my little one to grow up somewhat faster. I eagerly wait for the day when she would speak to me, express what she feels, and……….. I’ve to switch off the lamp and rock the cradle with both the hands. She has started whining and shifting in the cradle. See you soon.
©Image Credit

Just Wait Till You’ve Children of Your Own!

I am so excited to share with you that last month I got blessed with a cute little baby girl. Yes, I am a father now! And through this post I would also like to convey to the kids in my neighbourhood that they are now free to address me as ‘Uncle’, I won’t mind it anymore…

*****

“Remember, you used to frown at me whenever we discussed who would clean the baby’s poop when we become parents,” she said with a smile.

“Ya, I know. I used to hate the thought of having to clean the poop,” I replied. “But now that our baby is here, I don’t feel any displeasure.”

“You are a nice dad.”

“Maybe, but I thought my baby would never poop, not in the pajamas at least.”

Hehehe! She laughed. “That was your usual boring Joke.”

Whatever!

As we talked through this, Ustad Bismillah Khan’s Raag ‘Raat Darbari’ started out loud in the background – the baby was up and crying. Our baby cries a little louder: just like the Ahuja loudspeaker in a marriage band. I don’t know what woke her this time, my joke or her mother’s laughing.

Our newborn will cry for three reasons: either she is hungry, or wet, or she has some problem. So being an optimist dad, the first thing I checked was: is the baby wet?
No, everything dry.

“Sweetie, I think she is hungry,” I told my wife.

“She is not hungry!” she replied. “She just had milk at 8:00 pm.”

“Come on! It is 9:30. See, how hard she is trying to suck her fist.”

I won the argument; wife took the baby, and everything was settled now.

The baby gulped milk like a hungry rabbit for half an hour and then she was asleep with the breast still in her mouth. Both of us took a sigh of relief. I prepared the bed for the baby. Everything was kept at an arm’s distance: five pair of pajamas, three diapers, wipes, squeeze toys, and the feed formula.

Wife put the baby to sleep, and I moved on to switch off the light. The room went dark and silent. As I stretched out on my bed, I realized my arms, neck, and the back were hurting. My eyes soon became heavy with sleep and before I could start snoring, there was a thundering noise. I jumped to put on the light. The baby was crying like never before. Her face was red, her arms and legs were up in the air as if she was trying to get up on her own, and her eyes were filled with tiny tears. She was crying with all she had – a sight no father could bear.

I checked her diaper, and this time it was wet and heavy. The baby got a new diaper, and now she was happy and cheerful – as if she just woke up after a sound sleep. I checked the time, it was 10:30. I took her into my lap to put her to sleep, but now the baby was fascinated by the tube light. I moved her to the left, then to the right, but each time she would turn her head to the tube light.

“Give her to me!” wife said.

“No, no! You go to sleep. I’ll take care of her…”

“Is she hungry?” she asked again.

“No….. I think she is bored of sleeping,” I replied. “You sleep, I’ll manage her.”

Now father and daughter were together. Father looking at the daughter if she had closed her eyes or not, and the daughter still fascinated with the tube light.
I kept rocking her, but the baby had no trace of sleep. It felt like eternity. Finally after few hours of rocking, she closed her eyes, passed a smile, and went to sleep like a cub…… I put her down, checked the time – it was 2:00 am – and dropped dead on the bed.

Startled by someone’s voice, I woke up in a hurry.

“Can you hold her for some time? She has been up since two hours. My arms are hurting,” my wife said.

I checked the watch, it was almost five in the morning. The last hours of the night are generally the toughest to manage.

“Ok girlie, come to daddy!” I took the baby on my lap.

“I’ve fed her twice, changed her diaper, and I’m completely exhausted….. Can I sleep?” wife asked.

“Sure! You sleep now….. I’ll look after her.”

Wife was snoring soon, and the baby was smiling at the tube light. Whereas her daddy’s head was wobbly and his back was hurting more……

*****

While the above ordeal has become a routine now, no feeling can replace the feeling of being a father of a daughter. Because a daughter sleeps best in her father’s lap, and for the father she is the cutest thing to look at.