‘You did WHAT?!?!’
‘I created an excel sheet and mailed it to you,’ he replied calmly.
‘An excel sheet about what? I already have the ones detailing our personal finances, home improvement, holidays and meal planners.’
OH and I were having a discussion about ticking biological clocks and how almost all our friends, either had a bun in the oven or were new parents. Hence my surprise at receiving an excel sheet from him.
Btw, OH obsessively creates excel sheets about everything and can go on for hours about excel sheets; what they can compute and are capable of. He is an excel geek.
‘I created an excel sheet detailing how much a baby would cost to have and bring up. The excel breaks down the expenditure into year/month/day so you shouldn’t have a problem understanding it,’ he replied, a tad patronisingly and ducked just in time to avoid the paper ball I had hurled in his direction.
As always, the conversation was really not going anywhere. Instead of thinking of baby names and play-fighting on favoured gender of children, here we were discussing computer software.
We had been married for almost a decade and not had children. Not that it would have been an issue anywhere else but we are Indians. And we as a nation, are very interested in other people’s fertility.
People asked after we returned from our honeymoon. They asked on our first anniversary and on every anniversary thereafter. But recently, the questions had become pointed… some advised us to adopt while others promised to give us the contact numbers and fast-track appointments to fertility experts in hushed tones.
My mum had, as always, turned to religion and taken to fasting on a certain day of the week to appease at least one of the 33 million gods in the Hindu culture.
Just to reiterate here, we had no fertility problems, just an extreme disinterest in having children of our own.
OH never fancied himself as a Dad. He tolerated our friend’s children, often keeping them entertained during parties/birthdays/anniversaries, but he was never keen on becoming a Dad.
We would have conversations about children but they would soon become discussions about books/holidays or food.
Then Rohan happened and with him arrived sleepless nights, poopy diapers and colic induced incessant crying.
Jeeshu and Rohan get acquainted
Being a seasoned operations manager, OH decided to tackle the problem logically. He bought all the books on parenting he could find, read them cover to cover and made me read them too. He then drew up another excel sheet detailing what I should do with Rohan when…meals, naps, cuddles, bath, nothing was left out.
It worked, but only so much. He still couldn’t figure out why Rohan would cry and wake up in the middle of the night even though he had had a bottle.
This is when I decided to step in and explain that children were not as trainable as dogs or as predictable as business processes and over the next few months continued to encourage him to open up and embrace Rohan’s quirks and moods.
And that is when the transformation began. OH wasn’t a natural, but he tried. And how…
He would come back from work in time for bed and bathtime. He would be the one to go into Rohan’s room to placate him when he woke up crying at 2am. He would make up Rohan’s morning bottle, change him and play with him until I finished my morning coffee.
Jeeshu cradles Rohan
Henry Ward Beecher said, ‘We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves,’ and I saw this in OH. The transformation was complete.
In between his almost twice weekly trips to Continental Europe and Inter Club level Cricket playing, OH finds time for endless rough n tumble sessions, walks in the park, book reading and tickling matches with Rohan.
And I realised yesterday that the feelings were very mutual when on the way back from Nursery, Rohan pointed towards my phone and said, ‘Daddy phone’ and once I dialed OH’s number, Rohan took the phone out of my hands and said, ‘Look Daddy, Nona hand hurt.’
On his part, OH rushed home only to have Rohan jump into his lap and tell him all about the monstrous trip to the GP’s surgery where they had poked him with a needle.
I just sat back and enjoyed their animated conversation. The reluctant Dad had come a long way.
Jeeshu and Rohan wear matching t-shirts
Gurgles and Woofs 