On becoming a parent

This week we celebrated M’s 6 month birthday. Before I was a parent, I never really understood why parents made such a big deal about their babies’ monthly milestones. But now, I get it. I haven’t written much about it, but every month that passes in a baby’s life is such a miracle. It is such a gift to watch a life and a brain develop, literally day by day.

A few years into my marriage, I suddenly woke up one day with the realization that being a wife felt more natural than not being a wife. I realised at that point that though I had been married for a while, it took time for me to grow into the role. Over the last 6 months, I realised that the same can be said of growing into the role of a parent. It is the passage of time that shapes us into the roles we take on in life. We celebrate the traditional milestone celebrations like birthdays, marriages, graduations, etc., but from my experience, it is rare that we have fully entered into those roles on those dates. Rather, we grow into them.  The day I got called to the bar, I didn’t feel like a lawyer, but slowly, over the passage of time, at some point when I wasn’t looking, I became a lawyer. Similarly, the journey into parenthood has been gradual, and is still very much a work in progress. Maybe one day I’ll wake up feeling that it feels more natural to be a parent, than not to be one.

Over the last six months, I have marveled in awe at our little miracle. I have also been stretched and challenged in various directions. Sleep has been hard, yes. But more than that, I feel challenged when I think about the responsibility I now have to raise and shape a PERSON. I can’t help but look ahead to the time when my daughter will display our character traits, good and bad – and most frightening – those I intentionally taught her, and those I didn’t.  More than anything else, I feel the burden (in a positive way) of refining my character so that this new life can be imbibed with the very best character traits that I can offer to her.

On a lighter note, the past six months have also been very fun. Some of my favorite moments have been the first time I heard M laugh (as well as every subsequent time I heard her laugh), the first time she stretched her arms out towards me signalling that she wanted me to pick her up and the time that she stretched one arm out to me and the other out to J, showing that she loved both of us and didn’t want to choose. Other highlights have included bath times, waking up next to her happy self every morning (yes, we co-sleep, that will be for another post), as well her most recent experience trying solids for the first time (a banana, in case you were curious).

Happy six months, M! We love you 🙂

Teachable moment

The other day, I had a teachable moment. J and I were preparing for a dinner party that we were hosting. I was making stuffed butternut squash (more on that in another post) and J was helping me by grating the carrots. When he got close to the end of the carrot, he accidentally slipped and sort of grated his finger. His finger bled and he was in pain. When he came back from cleaning it up, I told him not to worry about the rest, and that besides, it was just the stump of the carrot that was left anyway. J insisted on continuing and finishing what he started. He said something like “if you don’t finish what you’ve started when it’s not important, you won’t finish what you’ve started when it is important”.

He was totally right, and it’s so true. If it were me, I would have totally felt sorry for myself for my bleeding finger and I would have been content to eat the stump of the carrot and move on with my life. And maybe that would have been ok. But nonetheless, J got me thinking about my habits and my patterns, and about how the small and unimportant events are really what help shape our character for the more important events. I know that he is right, because I have seen J in some pretty difficult situations, and he invariably stays strong and does the right thing even if it is much harder to do. Though I think his strong character comes from much more than being able to grate a carrot after hurting himself, I do think there is so much value in that lesson.

I leave you with this quote on habits and character that comes from an American text on the use of character evidence in court cases:

“Character may be thought of as the sum of one’s habits though doubtless it is more than this. But unquestionably the uniformity of one’s response to habit is far greater than the consistency with which one’s conduct conforms to character or disposition. Even though character comes in only exceptionally as evidence of an act, surely any sensible man in investigating whether X did a particular act would be greatly helped in his inquiry by evidence as to whether he was in the habit of doing it.” (McCormick, 1954).