handle on life

Google analytics is such a useful tool to put on your blog. It gives you tons of visitor statistics, which pages are popular, where readers come from etc etc. Its fun having this information and I have put these codes up sometime back. But then again, why should I be so enamored by it? My core target is Jispa. If I choose to play to the gallery, that would defeat the entire purpose and authenticity of the blog, wouldn’t it? Sure you are welcome. All can read. It is an open blog, but the writing must personal and to my mind directed. Would I have been able to keep this going otherwise? I don’t think so.
The birth of child is the death of the father. Somebody told me that kabir said so. The moment your child is born you start living your child’s life, you are ready to give up your life for your child, so in effect you are dead in that way.
A child changes you in many ways that one cannot fathom. This time when we went on a vacation to the north I had a bad back. It is a muscle injury in the lower back. Quite painful, especially while sitting. Pretty ok while walking or standing. But it starts hurting a bit while trekking, climbing. This vacation gave us plenty to do just that. Every time we would go trekking it would start with a niggle. A lot of the walking was through narrow paths with a steep slide on one side. To make matters worse the walking was on dry leaves which aren’t exactly great for grip. Being daddy, I love the responsibility of holding Jispa through all this, and I was not going to let my back come in the way. So I was holding Jispa all the time. It is then I realized that a daughter’s hand is a magic wand. My back pain disappeared when I held her hand. How could my back pain when I have to take care of Jispa. It’s just not possible. Together we took on steep inclines, steps, jumps, slips and everything that Mother Nature threw at us. At one point in Jilling, we had hailstones coming down with the temperature dipping. But with my little magic wand in my hand we just kept going. No pain.
But this is not a one way street. After we came back, Jispa pretty much refused to sleep alone in the separate room. She kept trying to slip into our bed. She is now quite big and we all don’t fit, especially considering the painful back. It’s quite a task of convincing her. Now the new thing is that she will not sleep in her bed on her own. You have to lie down next to her and make her sleep. Once she is asleep, you can proceed to catch your sleep on your bed. You read a bit, she reads a bit. Then she closes her eyes and sleeps. She says if we are not there then she does not get sleep fast. It takes a lot of time. Yesterday while I was beside her, she was quite irritated. There was a song in her head which she just couldn’t shake off. I think it was Billo rani or something like that. With that song in her head at night, no wonder she was irritated. So then I read her a few stories, hugged her a bit, get hugged back in return and then she got her sleep. Magic works both ways.

The theme song for parenting is not so different from this evergreen song. Its also a solution to most parenting issues. Both ways!