Ankita puraan

I started keeping a diary (the old-fashioned kind) during my initiation period as a mother. This is one of the first write-ups…

7th April 2008

ANKITA – Empress, one with auspicious marks.
Our daughter… our hearts, as they say are forever destined to walk out of our bodies.

We brought her home on the 10th of March 2008 from Missionaries of Charity, Delhi. Today, she is already the apple of everyone’s eyes; the grandparents, the aunts, the assorted neighbours. Ankita or ‘ita’ as we call her, is an absolute joy, except when she is sleepy and doesn’t know how to go to sleep; then she is a cranky, pain in the backside.

As I write this, she lies here next to me in an outrageously big fluorescent green shirt, dreaming. I always wondered why parents dress their kids in such awful clothes … now I know.
It could either be because the child is being so squirmy/crabby/ touchy that the parent picks the first set that is within reach OR the child, very considerately throws up/does su-su/potty at the exact moment the parent has finished dressing it up and hence are forced to do a: A ill-fated fashion disaster or b: Resort to point 1 which is to grab the first thing available to sight. There is one other reason, probably the biggest one. Gifts.

The minute people hear about so and so having had a baby, there is an influx of clothes in said person’s place. Now there are a few sensible souls who send the parents thoughtful gifts, like vitamin tablets but the others … baby sets, booties, jackets, socks and so on … in colours they think are cute (or stereotyped by the cruel marketing focused fashion police) – pink for girls, blue for boys.

Do you have any clue how a pile of pink looks to someone who last slept Lord knows when, has a howling infant waiting for her bottle and the flask has played deserter again? YES … like a strip of digene.

So the parent does what anyone with frayed nerves would do. Forage for anything that is not in pink (or blue) – clips, shoes, bibs, nappies – and put them over the antacid representing apparel.

From now on, when you see babies dressed like they are from Saturn … do not blame the parents. Give them a smile, maybe even a pat on their back. Beget some good karma. When you have a kid of your own; you will need all of it.

I thought we were smart. The day before Ankita was to come home, we went and got her a bunch of clothes in blue. So, now when we take her out, she is either dressed like Britney Spears with dark hair or gets mistaken for a boy.