What Eapen Is Teaching Me

Experience will always be the best teacher. But your kid could surpass it sometimes. Eapen has taught me things I would otherwise never have learnt, or to be precise, I would have refused to learn. He takes his own sweet time at things and there is pretty much nothing I can do about it. I rush through, all the time. Be it life as such or anything else I involve in. So every time I see how sluggish he gets I tell myself, "Ugh, kids!". But I've been reflecting on my messed up thoughts lately and realized how terribly wrong I've been all along. He’s not here to make things hard for me, he’s here to make me see things I’ve been shutting out of life all this time.

Last month was his third round of shots and he cried enough to make the entire hospital known of his presence. Good. He’s like his ma. I love crying. It is the second best catharsis to me, after writing. I saw how my baby cried his lungs out on being hurt, continued crying for a while after, and subsided on being held and rocked for a while. And that taught me the need for dependence. There is nothing wrong in depending on someone emotionally, physically, mentally. In fact if you have trusted folks to confide in chances are you’ll feel a lot happier easily. I had always thought it best to cry myself to sleep and wallow in self-pity. But it was doing me more harm than good. The time I started sharing all my deepest insecurities and worries with chucks I began feeling much better, like life was not fucked up afterall. I started talking to God when I realized I wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to lean on my own abilities. I know women who are just fine without any help, but me? I’m a hot mess like Eapen wriggling in his poo.

Like most kids Eapen took time to learn how to latch on for feed. He took a good two-and-a-half weeks at the end of which he began sucking like a pro. Those days he learned was the time we (I, chucks and both mums) struggled as well. But now that I think about it I can see how those days taught me patience unlike any other. I had chosen to forget the old adage, “Good things take time”, but here I was, reconsidering most things I had made myself believe out of spite, jealousy and arrogance. I was always unwilling to wait for things to happen, for people to change, for life to follow its map. And so I ended up making choices I would not have made had I given time some time. I watched Eapen take his own time to learn anything new (when EVERYTHING was new) and I saw where I had failed miserably in life – in quenching that desire to learn but always wanting to teach, in wanting to speak more than listen, in preaching than empathizing. I had to quit rushing all the damn time.

Post surgery Eapen had shed quite a lot of birth weight and that really bothered us. What bothered us even more was the many scars on his body – unpleasant memories of our baby’s days in the NICU. But with time he got better. He started smiling and recognizing regular faces, taking longer feeds and cuddling up to my warm bosom. Though his weight gain record wasn’t ideal it was his best. He taught me that no matter how many times I fall into slumps I could still rise. That scars are beautiful reminders of resilience.

Since the beginning of April he has been trying to turn on his tummy. He moves his butt around first and slowly his upper body follows. If practice makes perfect then Eapen is going to get there after a few more tries. He does it almost everyday, usually when no one is around. So I watch him from behind like a stalker and I see how he keeps attempting no matter what. He knows he’s doing his best even when the end result could be no different from the previous day’s. This little chap reminds me of all the times I gave up when life failed to go as planned. I gave up when words were scanty even after slashing out and re-writing page after page. I gave up because I felt like a loser. But now? Here I am mustering all good hope and feeling the need to publish this post ‘cos I’m tired of unfinished stories and blog posts.

Thanks for all the life lessons baby. Thank you for choosing my womb over anybody else’s. I hope for nothing but many many more days with you. I wanna watch you crawl, sit upright, wobble and walk. I wanna watch all your firsts, smile, record more videos of you licking your fingers, and watch you cuddle on your dad’s chest. I wanna read more to you and take you on literary adventures. Most of all, I wanna find myself again watching you.

Also, some days I wish our frontal lobes never developed.