As parents..

My husband is down with viral fever, and I am working from home the whole week to double up as a nurse. There is not much actually that I am required to do, to nurse him I mean. We have a full time maid, who looks after the baby, and can take care of him as well, but these men I tell you.. they simply refuse to grow up. All he wants right now from me is to sit next to him all day, stroke his hair every 10 minutes, enquire after his well-being every half an hour, offer him some eatable as frequently and argue and insist every few hours that he takes all his medication in time which he would have done as punctually, minus the fuss, had I gone to work. So while I put my precious life, and career to some extent at stake, the baby is deemed to be more vulnerable to the infection and put out with the maid. She is presently talking to her Auntie, as she is taught to address the lady. Let me clarify, she is blabbering away merrily, making little or no sense to us. There are few words that we understand, and she uses them continually to make the conversation interesting if not very intelligent. I hear her through the door left intentionally ajar, and all I get is umpteen repetitions of 'Papa' & 'Mumma' laced with gibberish. I point this out to my husband and we eagerly watch out for a third word, which never comes up. And suddenly, a realisation dawns on us, rather reinforced since we ought to know it already, as to how important we are to her. Her life completely revolves around us, it fills up with great pride, and a greater sense of accountability to know we mean the world to this charming little person who mentions us no less than a hundred times in a 10 minute long conversation. It is an absolute bliss to have somebody all for yourself! But, as my husband remarked with a perceptible quiver in this voice, or was it the fever, it is for a really short period. In less than 6 months, she will start with a play school and then she will have lots of things and more importantly, many more people to talk about..