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Feeding and Sleeping

Friday 1 February 2013

He sits on my lap, Friday night and he’s tired. His head resting on my chest, he slowly opens his mouth as the spoon approaches. The pureed fruit in his mouth, he mushes it against his gums, swallows, and looks up at me. His glassy eyes stare off into the distance, and a balled fist slowly comes up, rubs an eye to the accompaniment of a little fuss. I feed him the entire jar of fruit, and it’s clear that he won’t last much beyond the last bite. Within a few minutes, we’re upstairs, his head on my shoulder as I pace about the darkened room. Moments later, he’s asleep.

The great honor of being a parent is being present in those moments of ultimate trust, those moments that make us so very mortal. I am responsible for two of his most basic, mortal needs: food and a quiet, safe place to sleep. As the Girl grows more independent, these needs come less immediately from my hands: she takes food out of the refrigerator for herself; she prepares her own snacks and even helps with her own meals. It’s easy to take those basic responsibilities for granted with her. But with him, K and I are still everything — for a while.

Trusty

Monday 15 October 2012

“Will you need your trusty gloves?” the Girl asks. We’re getting ready to go another backyard adventure — our own little version of the Backyardigans — and she is packing her bag. Among other things, she has retrieved her and my work gloves (in as much as hers are work gloves), but she can’t decide if we need them.

“Go ahead and pack them,” I tell her, and we’re off — first for a series of pictures.

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“When I say ‘snap,’ you take the picture,” she instructs. She says it three times; I take three pictures. Simple.

As we march through the backyard, I learn that everything is “trusty” today: I have with my my trusty camera; she has packed her trusty binoculars; she’s worried about her gloves in her trusty bag.

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Everything is so trusty, and I ask her what it means to be “trusty.”

“That means it knows you can trust it,” she explains.

And it gives me pause. In that case, am I trusty? As a parent, I almost assume I’m trusty. Perhaps it’s parents’ eternal worry that they are never as trusty as their children assume and need them to be. Maybe it’s easier said than done. There are certainly times when doubt seems to be the only appropriate response — a moment of reflection that makes us think, “I guess I could always do better.”

In the end, I know I always want my children to think of me as their “trusty Tata,” and I always worry a bit that I’m not living up to that.

Trust but Verify

Monday 2 November 2009

When Gorbachev and Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Reagan used one of his most loved slogans:

The President: […] We have listened to the wisdom in an old Russian maxim. And I’m sure you’re familiar with it, Mr. General Secretary, though my pronunciation may give you difficulty. The maxim is: Dovorey no provorey — trust, but verify.

The General Secretary: You repeat that at every meeting. [Laughter]

The President: I like it. [Laughter] (Source)

It was in that spirit that I approached an administrator to verify a student’s explanation of her absence.

“No she did not come talk to me” came the reply, and my own words to the students, from the beginning of the year, echoed: “You have my trust now. Once it’s gone, it will take a long time to rebuild it.” This young lady, sadly, has lost my trust.

I’m not sure she’ll care. I can see her brushing it off as if it’s no big deal, and it might very well not be a big deal. Someone who hasn’t spent much time in an environment that fosters trust might not know what it’s worth, and in that case, it’s difficult not to try to care for her.