All your baby talk

A baby is quite a piece of art. Really. That said I absolutely adore the species.

At a lunch hosted by friend C, I met a cute, chubby angel. She looked like a female cupid. The only thing missing was probably a bow and a quiver of pink-tipped arrows!

Tiny brown curls capped an entrancing face made even more charming with pink cheeks. Baby pink was a bonny little thing wearing a pretty pink frock with her fat legs encased in pink woollen pants.

She was a happy child. Kept showing off a front row of two teeny weeny bottom teeth and kept babbling away. Keeping up with her garbled talk was enchanting. But the real task was walking with her. Her father was holding on to her hands while she tried her best to walk upright (she is just a year old, so has some time ahead of her to perfect those steps) when I intervened. And he warned me that I would have to walk her too to be of any interest to her.

So I got up and let her tiny palms rest in mine. Thereafter started a walk which made my back ache. And wasn’t her father glad. He had a wide grin pasted on his face as he said, “Tell me when you get tired.” Now I couldn’t really give up soon, so I had to humour my angel. In between, I tried stopping her and picking her up, but she was adamant. Amazing what will power these small individuals can exert!

Till I couldn’t do it any longer and swung her up in my arms and made her sit in a chair. Whereupon she grabbed my hair and wouldn’t let go.

I wish I earned enough to adopt a baby of my own. I have always yearned for one for the longest time. My mother though always expresses much concern at my train of thought. “It’s time you had a tot of your own,” she chides.

I once alarmed her when I seriously proposed adopting our tenant’s grand daughter H. I couldn’t believe it when she left our house with her parents to go back to Bombay. Every evening after I returned from college, I would rush to spend time with her. Once she peed on me. I was so angry that I did not let her come near me. Served me right when after changing she refused to let me come near her. It was only when I really cajoled her that she suddenly came running with unsteady steps into my open arms. Her favourite thing was to push my chin up and show me the sky.

She had an unusual name and an unusual twin brother too. The latter, a fat little boy with equally fat cheeks, once took a tumble from his pram onto our cemented driveway while I was wheeling him around. I will never forget that day. He started yelling and I started running up the stairs of my house. I got some really huge ice cubes for him which the nanny promptly put into his mouth. He loved it so much that he wouldn’t just pop it out.

That evening I was tensed like never before. I was sure I would be behind bars when he suffered a brain haemorrhage. It almost seemed like my mother had a black tongue. She had said earlier, “You never know when something happens and you will be sitting in jail.”

The next day however the nanny told me, “He fell down again on his head while he was playing on the bed.” Ouch! But boy was I relieved!