LEARNINGS OF BEING A Parent

The little amazing things learnt about beginnings of life through our 12 days old son Ian Merwin is expressed in this blog.

Learning of How Life Changed after a Newborn enters the home: Its been 12 days since baby Ian was born, and like posted earlier our life changed forever after that. Every time we kept our eyes, mind and soul on the little one. It amazes me how a 49cm, 2.85kg baby could just tap the attention of everyone, young and old. My Mom and Dad can’t take their eyes off from the baby, everything in the house, from food to cleanliness to keeping quiet for the baby was maintained so with the entry of the baby. TV and other entertainments around the house became a useless element in the house with the entry of the child. Everyone cared so much about the hygiene of the baby that they kept themselves clean and tidy in order to carry the child. The same things repeated in his house to, his parents cleaned the house and million times to keep mosquitoes, ants and other insects away from the house for welcoming baby Ian home. Aloky’s Dad came down from Coimbatore leaving everything which was very important just to see the baby, he could not accept the fact that the child was born and he was not able to see him. Just then Aloky and Me realised the love and the earnest wait that the grandparents had for the baby. They longed to see the child and be with the child and do so much for the child, this complete change of events brought into the house because of the child was something so amazing to our eyes. The joy that we saw in their eyes after they held the baby in their hands, all their problems worries just vanished away into thin air. Indeed We felt each time we saw these changes, that Ian was indeed a “Gift from God” brought into all our life to bring joy and happiness

Indeed We felt each time we saw these changes, that Ian was indeed a “Gift from God” brought into all our life to bring joy and happiness

Before I got a child, I used to wonder if parents got frustrated with people making the same comments, “So cute”, “How lovely He looks”, “So beautiful his eyes are” and so on, but now i realised how much we love hearing those statements about our Handsome Baby Ian even if it meant hearing them a million times.

Learning of Enjoying God’s Creation which is Perfect: From the first day of your life with the child being a new mom, you start out on something amazing called as breast-feeding which actually bonds your child and you together for life. Though I found the whole idea of how the baby actually cries and conveys his hunger, or sucks his little hands and conveys his hunger, itself as super amazing before each breast feeding, it was only after my elder sister Priscilla had come down to visit Baby Ian that i knew that my little Baby Ian was actually having the sucking reflex, rooting reflex and swallowing reflex the minute the baby is hungry. She also asked me if I could swallow and breath at the same time, its a difficult process and moreover needs to be done simultaneously in case of a newborn, thats when i noticed that the baby actually does them simultaneously!!! I wondered beyond compare as to how does a newborn baby know these things, its amazing to know that God created them with the most care to survive. Imagine how difficult would it be for us, to teach our child the art of eating and then to actually feed. Certain things which are perfectly taught are taught from above !

Certain things which are perfectly taught are taught from above !

There are many other small reflexes which we fail to notice in our newborn but are present and can be enjoyed even more if we learn about them during their development. The grasp response which is the most common, each time you keep your index finger the baby grasps your index finger in response to it. You may also notice something called as a startle reflex, I would like to describe this as a mild change reflex, my baby Ian gets startled each time we leave it without disturbance for more than 10 minutes and suddenly go near it and touch it, his both legs and hands will go right up to give us an indication of the same. We tried this reflex with switching on a fan, suddenly speaking in a quiet room and it worked just the same way, people say this reflex goes off after 2 months of age. Its great to read about them and to notice them in the baby !!! There are many more reflexes to learn about and this is just the beginning of them and the best part is the more you notice these things in your child the more you learn that the child is having normal reactions to the new world he has come to live in!

Learnings of Listening to Your Child:  Though our child cannot speak right away to us, but still we are able to listen to his needs and certain thoughts by the way he expresses himself. Something that aloky and me admired about the child was the different expressions Ian showed from the very beginning, we are trying and will keep trying to capture all the moments and expressions of Ian each and every time he makes them. He has the most captivating eyes, that we long and wait for it to pop up each time he is in the mood to play and hear us speak to him. He loves to hear music, the minute he listens to mozart or rhymes or the music composed by his dad, he listens to them so keenly forgetting that he ever cried before and enjoying the feel of it! I guess its his dad’s musical genes inside of him that is shown so clearly. His ability to actually know the difference between my mom and me, this is too early to say, but when he is hungry and if I am not around and my mom takes him, he knows with her voice that he needs to keep quiet till he can control his hunger, this might sound like a myth and may even sound medically not possible, but either ways, we would like to take it as our baby Ian is intelligent :P! He loves his cleanliness! Each and every time he cries and yells till we take him to the changing mat and get him cleaned up! His way of telling us its time to change! This reminds me of something really amusing that happened, my dearest hubby and Ian’s dad, told me and his mom that “he won’t do the dirty job of cleaning Ian up, that you guys do I will only play and carry him”. The next minute after cleaning Ian completely, when Aloky picked him up, Ian baby pooped royally on him! A memorable even which we would never forget no matter what. Its all laugh and play when having a baby around in the house. There was one more incident which was really something to be cherished, when baby Ian was given polio drops, his expressions that time “MI MI it was something else” He so beautiful expressed that he hates the taste of the drops and wants it removed immediately! We all could not stop talking about it till now.  His ability to make us understand that he loves music, songs and talking to him  and hates being left alone or is sick and cannot be fed more even without him speaking a word, made us realise that lots can be told with just a touch, a look and a beautiful expression! 

His ability to make us understand that he loves music, songs and talking to him  and hates being left alone or is sick and cannot be fed more even without him speaking a word, made us realise that lots can be told with just a touch, a look and a beautiful expression! 

There is so much more that was learnt and so much more to be learnt and so much more to write but will continue them in the next posts. Till then Happy Parenting to all Parents.