Georgie Porgie

Nibbles has turned into quite the Georgie Porgie of late, kissing the girls and making them cry; a charming turn from his earlier ear fetish that was satisfied with a firm twist of the gentle appendage till turned a pretty crimson. I’m proud to say that he’s taken quite a pansexual approach to this slobbery habit, which is often preceded by a friendly, non-Zidanish headbutt.

Speaking of pansexuality, I do hope I don’t pigeonhole him into any gendered or sexual stereotype. Perhaps I should dismiss it as cute when he’s chasing girls and cars and the adults cheer him on. I too am guilty of encouraging popular stereotypes by always dressing him in clothes from the boys section and refusing to buy the shiny pink “girls” shoes, even though they were the only pair in his size (and he desperately needs a new pair).

Right through my stormy teens I’ve always dressed in oversized boys clothes, so perhaps I may be excused from the fashion department. Books, then? Besides the list of sexist prince-saves-fair-maiden fairytales, I ought to sing of beautiful gay princes that lived happily ever after. Should my stories be uniformly distributed across sexual preferences and even race or ecominic status? Or should it reflect the (questionable) demographics of the community we live in? I wouldn’t want to bias him either way, but I’m too hopelessly human to be rigorous about that.

Ok, so I don’t think that sexual identity issues are something Nibbles needs to worry about – not today anyway. The jigsaw of one’s identity may take a lifetime to piece together and the exercise in itself can be exhausting if the constructed image keeps evolving. I don’t know what color his rainbow will be, but today it is a brilliant, transparent light that bounces off his beaming face and dances in his bright eyes when he sees someone he likes. He doesn’t think to question the source of that feeling for a second, but chooses to fling that affection carelessly with no fear of it being shunned.

What would it take to be so recklessly free again? From what I remember, a stiff martini (or five) might do the trick.

Victory Showers

Forget about one-hand cooking. I have no fucking clue how some women morph into domestic divas with a toddler on the loose.

Big Byte, being the cool foo that he is, chopped and stashed all the veggies I’d need for a week’s worth of cooking while he headed to Bangalore for training. This way, I could look forward to more than the scrambled eggs and cereal I’d subsisted on the last time he was away – or so he thought.

I started off with lofty goals of making aloo gobi (yes, lofty). Ditched the idea of aloo when Nibbles got entangled in my laptop wire under a revolving chair. Gave up on grated ginger, sliced green chillies and freshly chopped garlic when he started to chew on the guacamole green crayon stolen from Chilis. When Nibbles knocked over the trash with an innocent (?) swing of his lil’ red baseball bat, I decided to fuck it all by dumping a heap of sambhar masala into the pan and yanking up the heat.

So cooking was clearly way above my league. My next bold move was taking a shower. There’s no way I could close the door on Nibbles (childproofing doesn’t really work – not for my kid anyway) and there’s no way I could let him in, considering the sparkle I detected in his eyes when he saw me operate the flush. Stumped in a Schrodingeresque dilemma, I took my momma’s advice – strapped him in his stroller and left him at the bathroom entrance. I did improvise though, with a song and dance routine that could certainly be interpreted as inappropriate and permanently scarring…but only after a certain age, I hope.

What really is that age when such privacy issues are a concern? I suppose since I’m still breastfeeding, keeping mum about the mammaries is not an option for the moment. In any case, I’m not a fan of the “shame-shame, puppy-shame” approach. But I’m also not the mom that lets her kid run naked midst the sprinklers at Central Park.

Anyways, point is, it worked like a charm. The gargle-singing, the jiggly-stretchmarked-belly dancing, the shower curtain peekabooing – momma clearly knows best. There Big Byte – I have learnt to shower without you. Uh..ok, this post is headed right to the gutter where it belongs.

Black Or White

I was pleasantly surprised at how a cacophonous Nibbles was suddenly calm and content in Big Byte’s arms. Must be a special father-son thing, an unspoken language of trust and love, an…ack! It was the damn TV, in all its brighlty pixelated glory.

NP: “Oye! Are you letting him watch TV? And…wtf! You’re letting him watch that? (glares disapprovingly at satin-stockinged leg beckoning random dude)

BB: “Relax yaar! He’s not watching it; he just likes the light and colors. Besides, it’s not what you think. That leg is Shahrukh Khan’s.”

NP: “What??? That’s worse. Now he’ll be scarred for life.”

BB: “Why worse? I thought you were all for gay rights, supporting sexual choices etc.?”

NP: ” Bu..but – of course I am. It’s just that I, uh…” (greps feverishly for adequately PC response) “Ah screw it! you win.”

It’s true. I’d always said that I’d not only be supportive of my gay child, but encouraging. I’d even offered to adopt the unborn gay children of all my homophobic friends (thankfully, there aren’t too many of them). But now that I’m a parent,  are my bigoted, old-fashioned notions that were buried after years of caffeinated all-nighters and deliberate unlearning resurfacing?.

Nibbles is 4 months old today and my idea of parenting is hazy at best. I seem to have strong, stubborn opinions on every topic ranging from Mac Donald’s to pansexuality, but it’s often insubstantiated fluff. I think the problem is that I don’t have guiding principles, an underlying philosophy, a theory of everything. Perhaps it’s a function of my refusal to label anything right/wrong, good/bad, moral/immoral, and my need to constantly mutate my ideals.

How can I teach Nibbles anything when I don’t have the cheat-sheet myself? What if my hypotheses are grave misunderstandings? Are half-baked views better than relying on a child’s – no an infant’s ability to rationalize his way to the right solution? But wait, there’s no right solution. And is a rational conclusion really what matters?

Ah well, the present is now. I may not be sure of much, but I’m defnitely past the point when I can decide if I’m mom-material. That’s one less choice I have to make. So it’s about time I summoned my mommyness and learned to trust my instincts  instead of the trinity of Spock, Sears and Google.