Being a grandmother; Now

Grandmother is no longer someone else with grey hair, but you. Very pleased with it though.But  old habits die hard and I do catch myself  at times referring  to ' an old lady around sixty.'

Amma had naturally got into the role, and it took a bit of mental training for me to learn to bathe the baby.I asked amma the technique in bathing an infant and she in her characteristic way told me, since you are in the hospital, watch the nurses bathe infants and pick it up from there. I watched with horror the way they held a day old baby by the scruff of the neck and give a quick wash down in less than two minutes. I was sure I would not want to pull that off, so looked for props. I remember seeing my friend's daughter having a sliding board sort of contraption while bathing her child. So I went to the baby shop nearby and asked for it.Yes, it is available and I was so happy that I would be able to pass the most important test. I have seen my mother put the baby on her legs.I felt quite nervous to try it. The bathing board was very useful and got me off to a flying start. After a few days we started giving oil massage to the baby.And when I put him down on the board, he was nicely sliding up and down and making it impossible to bathe him properly. It was also slightly risky. I also now have experience by my side, so I decide to do the 'baby on my legs' experiemnt.It was a grand success. Our grandmas have mastered and perfected the technique, with stuff available in hand(or one's legs to be precise!) The blue board from that day has been confined to behind a cupboard and will lie there unused and cast away till thatha does one of  his clean up act a few months hence.

Amma has been part of a joint family in the earlier years of her married life. So I sat and counted how many kids were at home at one point of time, when I was an infant. We were ten of us all under 10 years of age.Naturally amma was quite comfortable taking care of my children and she used to have an elan about it. Here I am being part of a nuclear family and my experience is one fifth of my mothers. It shows. I don't take a definite stand on dos and donts. I do repeat parrot like what amma tells me when I refer to her every now and then, But am completely stumped when I am questioned as to the rationale of an action. So D and me refer to the book on 'what to expect in the first year of the child'. We both get wiser simultaneously! There is also the internet which we referred for the first time when the baby was crying non stop for an extended period of time. Whether it helped soothe the child or not I am not sure, but it definitely gave us some perspectives; babies will cry, sometimes with reason and sometimes just to communicate something.Not all crying needs to be addressed.Some of them need to be diverted or allowed to run their course. Amma never had to refer to the internet, the bawling kid would be naturally passed on from one elder to the next and somewhere along the way would be pacified  or diverted by some other kid.

It is amazing the same sutra for child rearing and taking care of a new mother, are almost always the same across India. Nothing is written down, but dutifully passed on from one generation to the other through the female chain of course! Doctors dont very much stress 'pathiya saapadu' but there are enough experts who say, it is always a safe option. Doctors those days were not as inclusive as they are now. They gave curt instructions and we never saw them after discharge from the hospital. Now we go to the doctor for all sorts of doubts. Earlier it was what the  grandmother said and it was done, period.

I do think there is a need to temper the do's and dont's . Like the one about not leaving the baby's clothes in the clothesline after dark. It does not make any sense in today's apartment culture. I guess earlier they used to be in the backyard, which used to be ill lit and animals and birds and insects used to freely roam around after dark. So it was that accidentally we might use a cloth which has  a creepy crawly in it. There is the taboo that the mother and baby should not go out anywhere after it is dark.Same logic, one would not know what one would encounter in earlier times when there was no street light. Now when they are going out in the well lit city roads and more so in cars or personal transport, it does not make any sense to say it shall not be done,
It is good D is raising these issues and we are able to think and follow which of the hand me down wisdoms are relevant now. Once she is convinced after the mental acrobatics, she happily follows them .
Now I am sure that the path of reason is well lit when she dons grandmas hat!