With a Baby in the House...

It was 8.30 in the evening as I parked the car in the office complex and keyed the pass code that would gain me an entry into my office. The whole office was dark and deserted except for a light in my boss's cabin and as I passed him, I heard him chuckle as he asked whether I was twelve hours early or twelve hours late for work.

Your daily time schedule goes for a toss once you have a baby in the house. Time which stood still when you saw your baby for the first time now runs with Usain Bolt's legs. Specially time carved out for self which now becomes practically non-existent. Many first time parents don't know how crazy the first three months can be and the utter chaos and riot it can cause to your time management skills. We all hear it from our experienced friends and family but actually hear it when the baby wails at 3.00 in the morning and wakes you with a jolt. No wonder, the first three months are often referred to as the fourth trimester. It was two months before I managed to finish a book that I had started reading. This was a new record for someone who's previous accomplishments included finishing three paperbacks in 24 hours.

I have two full time jobs now and I try to give my best to both though sometimes I wonder if people judge me for not choosing one over the other. But at the end of the day, all that should matter is whether as a working mother, you are happy and satisfied and feel that you are able to give justice to both. There is also no denying the fact that family support goes a long way in ensuring your personal and professional commitments are met with and I have been truly lucky and blessed to be bestowed with an amazing support system. Now I sometimes go to work at 8.00 p.m; courtesy of the time flexibility offered to a working mom in US, often check my mails at 2.00 a.m; courtesy Satish who's turn it is to look at Sia if she wakes up at that time and mostly hit the bed at 4.00 a.m.; courtesy Sia if she is already sound asleep by then. But the best part of this journey is that your days no longer remain set patterns or routine timetables but every day is fresh and unpredictable. Every moment is a surprise, a revelation. One day your baby smiles back at you, the next she learns to roll over, some other day she will start crawling. These everyday precious milestones keep you forever guessing and waiting in anticipation of the next visible one.

The other good part is you get to revisit your childhood. Now I can not only sing the entire nursery rhyme book by heart but also chirp like a sparrow since that sound sends Sia into peals of laughter. You also get to revisit your courting days. Satish and I now actually fix coffee dates after work before returning home to catch up on the day's events, something which we frequented during our courtship days but took for granted after getting married.

Also you learn to let go of many habitual practices acquired and held on to after passing into adulthood. Earlier my house used to be spic and span and people who knew me often commented that I was a cleanliness lunatic with my obsession often bordering on eccentricity. I could not pass a slightly tilted frame hung on the wall without resisting the urge to straighten it. Or fold the towels in the bathroom such that their edges were exactly in line with each other. Or rearrange the already arranged cosmetics on the dresser in ascending order of their heights. The list was never ending. But now I've learnt to let go and the house is no longer the "museum", as our friends had christened it, with Sia's invasion of the territory. Now I no longer freak out after finding her toys in my bathtub or my cellphone being used as her teether. Sigh! I sometimes wonder if my house will ever be the same again with a Baby in the House but neither will Life.