Introducing a tiny, new person

Ladies and Gentlemen, having been prone to occasional disappearances from the blogging world, most of you who take the time to visit would have chalked up this absence to yet another trip home or another prolonged lazy phase.

Well, this time around, I am happy to report my reasons are much more solid. I have actually been pretty busy learning to be a mom and bringing up a tiny new person!

Becoming a mother seems quite a feat when you think of it in individual terms and hardly worth mentioning when you think back to the centuries that have been spent by the female sex doing much the same thing in some pretty intimidating circumstances. However, this being my first experience at motherhood, I choose to feel extremely smug and patronizing about my achievement.

The little Dino is a much-coveted little girl and is tentatively named Nitara Triti Patil. Triti (a moment in time) is a nickname and pretty well established as fact by now. There is still some back and forth on Nitara (a deeply rooted individual), but alternatives suggested are very few and not easily agreed upon.

Having been told on the 8^th of March that she would arrive via elective surgery, the entire extended family got together that evening to discuss the best “time”, astrologically speaking, to bring her into this world. The 10^th, 15^th and 17^th of March were considered good dates and times were looked up. Since I grew up never putting much faith in these things, it bothered me a little that everyone else was trying to manipulate my child’s fate in this way. Instead, I woke up at 5 the next morning to signs of her imminent arrival. To say I found it hilarious is an understatement. As they say, ‘All the best laid plans…’. She made her mother proud by choosing her own time and was born on the 9^th of March, 2016 at 10:01 in the morning.

Becoming a mother entails so much pain, discomfort and various trials and tribulations that at one point I wondered why anyone would go through it all, and some heroic women more than once. And then I watch the little Dino smile in her sleep, or stretch her tiny arms over her head in an effort to wake up, or I open my eyes at 2 in the night and encounter her doe-like ones looking straight into mine and, in the most time-honoured and clichéd of sentiments, I feel something in my ribcage grow warm and mellow. Like centuries of mothers before me, all the pain, the discomfort, the frustrations feel insignificant and completely worth it to me as well.

And so, I promise to love and protect the little mite and to try to do my best by her for as long as I live. I will try to be understanding of her choices and ambitions, even when I fail to agree with them, and I hope to never be the one who holds her back. I will also try to be brave enough to let her explore this great wide world without tagging along all the time.

I hope we can be friends for life, but I will settle for being a great mom just as well.

On that note, here is a prayer for you my little one.

May you only encounter love and the best of everything in this world. May you grow up to be a loving, honest, loyal, strong, practical, yet kind person. May you spread your wings and find joy and freedom in all that you do. May every opportunity you look for find itself knocking at your door. May you always be surrounded by thoughtful friends and loving family. May you grow tall (or at least taller than any woman, and most men,  in my family).

Good luck my dear Nonna. Welcome to the world. Explore. Enjoy. Begin.