We are wrapping up our first vacation, my love. I am about to start a new job on Wednesday and so we decided to take some time and travel to a place where the people have really figured something out. We came to Savannah. Where the pace of the world is just perfect. The food is out of this world. And people are exceptional, taking Southern Charm to new heights (and our spirits right along with them.) There are few places where the host at a restaurant can set your mood for the whole day on such a rockin’ first step that it would take multiple acts of God to change course.
And wouldn’t you know it? You fit right in. You brought all of your magic with you from LGA and unleashed it upon this beautiful southern city like they have never seen. From the neighbors on our flight, to the people in line at Mrs. Wilkes. From the bellmen at the Forsyth and the Westin, to the wait staff at every restaurant from Local 11 Ten Food & Wine to The Olde Pink House. From the wedding party who saw me walking circles around the lobby to the random members of the International Oil Spill Conference 2014 who realized that my job as your dad trumped their wildest dreams 10 times to Sunday.
You.
Brought.
Magic.
To everyone who saw you. To everyone who was lucky enough to be within earshot of your gurgles and sight of your smile. You make life grand, my genius, every single day for those who know you. But this vacation, you made life grand for everyone you came across. And for that reason, we could not have been more honored to be your parents.
Life is grand. Love is grand. Ain’t it? You be the judge.
Not in a hip hop way. Like when nobody’s around and I drop lyrics on you in a flow that isn’t disruptive to your eardrums without compromising
the integrity of the song (good hip hop like good folk music can withstand changes to music, IMHO.)
Today my love for you is musical in a kiddie musical kind of way. Why? Because Mommy took you and me to our first music class today. Wow, were you adorable. First off, you were the youngest by a mile. The closest was Alton who’s 10 months old. After that, everyone was in — gulp — YEARS!
But you held your own my baby. The interesting thing for me was that we showed up and you were already in sleep mode. Yawning on the stroller ride over. Full stomach in tow. I mean, these were prime sleeping conditions for you. But we got there, and the music was playing, and the teacher was singing, and you were all about it. Not a peep. Not a tear. Maybe a yawn or two. But otherwise, you were invested in this class. Sitting on your Mommy’s lap (let it be known that I was the only Daddy within miles of this class.)
You love music, baby. You love when your Mom sings “Happy” to you. You love when your Fia sings to you (just about anything.) You love when certain music plays in the background. And though nobody really knows it, you actually enjoy it when I’m rapping to you. So this makes sense.
But you also don’t always do things that make sense. Like when you fight sleep and shake your head to keep yourself awake. That doesn’t make sense. It’s awesome and adorable and cruel to watch at the same time. But it doesn’t make any sense.
You know what makes sense though? You loving this moment as much as I did.
We wanted your room to be magical, little one. We wanted it to conjure up excitement, and energy, and inspiration, and happiness. We wanted you to enter your room and feel happy. We wanted other people to enter your room and feel magic. We wanted a set of decorations that were worthy of you.
We tried our hardest.
But perhaps more than anything, I personally wanted a room that I loved. That I adored. That reflected everything I want for you.
I can’t tell you the pressure I was feeling to bring together a vision that would allow us to achieve that. And I think we did. I feel like we did, munchkin. We could not have done it without the kind heart and hard work of Robert Gardner, a fantastic artist who fell in love with you before you were born by falling in love with this vision early on. We were lucky to find him.
And when you stare at Max and all his Wild Things while we’re changing you, I realize we actually did.
So today my love for you is a pathway. One that takes you to and through some amazing characters, lands and experiences.
I love you munchkin. Your room is filled with some of the greatest stories we have ever read. Apropos, because you are our greatest story.
Can you believe it? Your mom actually trusted me. Alone. With you. For a whole day. She had stuff to do. So Daddy stepped-up. And you know what? Best day ever.
We had a pretty fantastic day. We started out on the right foot by sucking all the snot out of you. I am usually the person who has to do that because Mommy thinks you’re going to get hurt or she looks at you and starts empathizing and feeling your pain before even you do — in a way only a mom can. I look at you and think fairly practically, “D*mn! We need to get that snot out before it turns into an ear infection.” And then I get after it. So that’s how we started.
After rocking out some breakfast and keeping you propped for a while, we shifted to the play mat. That’s right. You know EXACTLY what time it was. Tummy time! And you crushed it. I mean, 12-13 minutes. Talk about endurance. You rolled over pretty much right away so I knew you weren’t playing around. But after proving your advanced skills you spent the rest of the time on your neck exercises.
You were pretty wiped after that. So it was time for your first nap. A power nap. 30 minutes. I wish I could look as good as you do going into and out of a nap. I also wish I could be so instantly happy. Do you really wake up feeling this happy? Wow. You just taught me another lesson and changed my life again. Thanks guru!
We moved to the bed. Hung out a bit and rolled through most of The Cat in the Hat. Good times. But you were a little restless. And at this point, Daddy was actually a bit hungry. I figured I’d earned some delivery so went for a breakfast fritata and some breakfast potatoes. There was a point where I felt like you were about to give up on breast milk and upgrade yourself to the hard stuff. When you do, I at least know what you want to get after first. I also know that now I’ll be sharing my breakfast choices with both you and your mom. Awesome.
More play time. More tummy time (round 2.) We got you to 10 minutes but it was a fight. I wonder if I could have kept you on your tummy for even longer. The problem? Every time I turned you over, you looked like this. And frankly, this is the best face the world has ever seen so I allowed myself the guiltiest of pleasures — your dimple and your smile. Once people look at this picture I know I’ll be forgiven for not pushing harder on tummy time at this particular moment.
So the goal was to take you into work at this point. We were hitting the 1pm mark and that was around your sweetspot for travel, or so I was told. So after changing you and feeding you, I got you ready to go. Monkey suit on. Baby Bjorn, harnessed. It was just a matter of getting the two together. I’m going to share a picture of what you looked like before I tried to pull all of this together. Because after … well, let me cover the after, after.
What most people may not realize is that you hate this outfit. As adorable as it looks on you and you look in it, having you in this and then taking you anywhere is brutal. If we’re going to have you wear it we should just carry you. But this and a Bjorn are disastrous. So after fiddling with all of this for 30 minutes and getting you to exhaustion I pulled you out of this outfit, put your old gear on from earlier in the morning — and you faded away like Michael Jordan on the Wizards. Out. So I nixed our trip to the city. And enjoyed you nuzzling in my neck first. Followed by throwing on an episode from one of the last seasons of Breaking Bad. I even captured two critical moments for posterity.
Ahh, Walter White. Few shows are timeless. I fear this show will be completely unappreciated by your generation. It’s ok, you’ll hear me talk about it and love me for it because I’ll never do anything that annoys or exhausts you. (Let me believe that.)
I held you for a bit. I cherished it. But then you were getting hot and Daddy had to actually get some work in. So he placed you in the MamaRoo and got after his job. A good thing in the end.
After this nap I fed you. You were hungry. But you were also twisting and turning your head like mad. To the point where your bib actually flipped around to the back. And what Daddy realized, at that very moment was something incredibly powerful: a bib turned backwards is basically a baby superhero cape! How awesome is that!
After some superhero fun, we worked on your superhero strength. Grip. Right now you have a grip that would make Lincoln Hawk jealous. The problem is that your hands don’t always know what they’re doing — so we’re focused on the difference between voluntary and involuntary. I’m going to have to say that your voluntary grip effort is really on point.
We ended the day back on Daddy’s recliner. I reclined. Rested you on my lap. And we played for a good 20 minutes. Lots of chatter. Lots of talking. Some standing. Some swaying. Some singing. Some sitting. All amazing. All, absolutely, amazing. And here’s the image I will remember most throughout the day.
There’s no denying that this was absolutely one of the best days of my life. I love you munchkin. Today my love for you is all mine. I got to feel what your Mommy feels every single day. And I loved the hell out of it. We’ll have this day, our first of many, for the rest of our lives.
Since your birth you’ve managed to pull off something miraculous on almost a daily basis. But this one, this was one for you. It’s the first time I watched you try to take care of yourself. Amazing right?
It’s the morning. You’ve woken up with some serious hunger pangs so you’re trying to balance saving your energy with crying out loud so that I know you’re hungry. It’s always a fantastic balancing act on your part.
Against the advice and counsel of just about everyone, I’m trying to lessen the pain on both your vocal chords and my ears by introducing you to a pacifier. Sometimes, you hate it. And when you do, you spit it out with the quickness.
But when you like it? I feel like the binky had to have been dipped in chocolate because you’re sucking on it like it’s candy. Amazing candy. Like no candy I’ve ever tried. A candy beyond mine (and Homer Simpson’s) wildest dreams.
The sucking part is adorable. But today you did something extraordinary. While I thought you were about to smack yourself in the face (something you will sometimes do) you actually allowed your hand to slowly make its way to your pacifier. You then pivoted your wrist and put your palm on your pacifier.
(Suspense right?)
And then you pulled it out, kind looked at it like a drunk would his house keys, and jammed the whole thing back into your mouth. I tend to have my camera on the ready with you so given that all of this happened in slow motion, I was able to capture your hand still on the pacifier after you’d reinserted it into your mouth.
You did something most adults forget how to do. You pacified yourself.
You’re growing up so fast, my munchkin. Like I wrote about earlier, you’re going to need me less and less every single day. Today was beautiful to watch for you, and humbling for me. Today my love for you is pacified. And I’m totally fine with it.
So it’s actually dosa. Or as I like to spell it, Dosa. I capitalize because it’s a divine food.
Today, my dear, was your first time going out to dinner. You were spectacular. The rest (Chadhas and Motianis) of us feasted on Dosas (fully varied across the table, from rava to paper, from mysore to plain, from masala inside to masala out.) But we crushed ourselves some Dosas in Edison at the world famous Swagath.
What I love about this whole trip is that throughout her time carrying you, your Mom had one craving on one day — that’s it.
Guess what it was for?
You nailed it. Dosa. Capital D. Don’t worry, you got some with your nightcap I’m sure.
I got home from work today and you were doing well. Playful. Your Eeshan Kaka was here and you were your compelling, beautiful, natural self which also means you completely won him over and made him your servant and enabler for life. I know. I’ve been there.
But as the night wore on you weren’t quite satisfied yourself. You were eating, enough to fill you up in the short-term but not enough to knock you out and satisfy you for a few hours. You were napping, but you’d snap out of it almost as quickly as you’d fall into it. Everything you were doing, you were doing in fits and spurts.
I feel lucky today though. I want to figure this out and today, I think I can. So I work some options and get you to take 2 ounces at 10. So far so good. You burp yourself into a milk coma. I hold you upright for 15 minutes. And then we swaddle you and drop you off in your crib. All is well. I clean some dishes. Sanitize your humidifier. I even get some work emails out.
At 11, you’re up again. First I see some flickers on the monitor screen. Motions. It’s you doing your darned leg lifts again. (Your core has got to be pretty fantastic at this point, by the way.) After the flickers on screen I hear bleats in stereo, both directly from the room and from the monitor. Surround sound fail on my part.
But you just can’t be hungry. You’re tired. Your diaper probably needs a little changing. So I do that first. Blue line down the front of the diaper means it’s game on and I have you wiped, diaper swapped, and smiling in minutes. I don’t want to feed you though. I don’t think that’s what you want. I think you’ll take a half an ounce; but then you’ll be unsatisfied and I think you’ll wake up shortly again anyway.
So I leave you on the peanut and we start stretching and exercising. You look like Cynthia Cooper before a game — and I’m your trainer. We’re stretching your legs. Stretching out your arms. We’re getting downright PT up in this nursery. And after a few minutes, a beautiful thing happens. Your eyelids get heavy. Another twist of your hips and your eyelids start to look like they weigh pounds. Like keeping them open is your greatest act in defiance of gravity.
I pick you up, I reswaddle you, and then I caress your head lightly. Just fingertips. Every stroke seems to create a slightly stronger seal between your eyelids. Soon enough, you’re out. And I watch you. I shush lightly. I stare deeply. And I don’t know where the time has gone. I really have no idea.
After 20 minutes I shake off the daydream (mostly because my body was falling asleep in weird places and stages.) I take this picture and decide to finish up some emails and then write this post. Here we are, 45 minutes later, and you’re still at peace.
So today, my lovely, brilliant, amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, outstanding, wonderful daughter, my love for you is briefly satiated. All because I found a way to bring this look to your face. It’s not quite the happy dance you gave your mom last week, but in context (midnight on a work night), it’s downright perfect.
Perfection kind of seems to be your thing, though. Who knew?
For the longest time I was a brother with many sisters. Life was good; even when it included my being dressed-up in berets, bows, and whatever else my sisters made me wear. The brother/sister relationship is one of the most special you can have. I am both a younger brother and an older brother. I love and cherish my roles respectively, and love it more when those relationships expand (to include your mom’s sisters, and my brother’s/friend’s significant others.)
The brother/sister relationship is the foundation of my favorite personal “holiday”, Raksha Bandhan. As rituals go, I tend not to be a fan. But this one is untouchable and beautiful to me. You can read the background on Wikipedia or elsewhere so I’ll spare you a deeper dive, but here’s my quick rundown on what it is and why it matters. If you’re lucky enough to have a sister, you’re blessed. This blessing is memorialized once each year when the sister ties a Rakhi (simple, beautiful thread) on the wrist of her brother, serving as a symbol of her blessings and her protection. In return, the brother gives his sister gifts, as recognition of both his luck (for receiving that love) and as acknowledgement of the fact that he’s trying his best to repay a debt he’ll never actually be able to. Money for eternal blessings, love, and protection. Sure, I know there’s obviously a lot of stuff going back to the sister on this front, and they’re kind of lucky too, but as A brother, I feel like this is pretty one-sided leaving me the beneficiary.
Over the past 8 weeks, you’ve met a number of your brothers. Some have held you and made you cry (Karan, you’re never going to live this down, bro, even though it’s not true — it is a fun story,) some have held you and pointed out that they didn’t make you cry right after the fact (Mundeep, way to seize the opportunity), and some have simply wanted you to say hi and taken sheer bliss from it (Arj, happy you got your wish).
This weekend you got to spend time with the brother who’s closes in age to you, your Hukam Veerji. What a great weekend together, and we ended it in style. You were super comfortable in his lap, and he was super comfortable with you in it. We’ll be retaking this exact picture over time.
With Hukam Veerji on his way back home, now only a couple of hours a way (how awesome is that?), I realize that today my love for you finds its way to you through your brothers. The boys who make me feel blessed because of the roles they are all going to play in your life, and who you will have the opportunity to love, bless, and protect as my sisters have done for me.
Man, I can’t wait for your first Raksha Bandhan. You’ve got a lot of love to give, don’t you munchkin.
Suneet Bhatt 
