This is the name given to him by Tanay. Sometimes he even calls him “Rajaji”, meaning dearest King. When Tanay pushes him around in his li’l buggy, Dhruv sits with both his hands spread out, his head held high and his nose up in the air.  Just like royalty! He has a mind of his own. You can never tell what he will do next and experience has taught me to be alert… ALL THE TIME! He has the most mischievous eyes and when he smiles at you with all of his eight teeth, you know it in your gut that something is about to happen!

He goes to The Little Gym once a week and is fast turning into a human monkey. He climbs atop chairs & tables & bath tubs (yes! you read that right!) with such ease, I swear it sends shivers down my spine! And more so because Tanay was such a cautious baby. I never had to worry about stuff like this. At last week’s class, Dhruv’s gym teacher mentioned that he seemed to be much advanced for his age. I seriously did not know whether to be happy or scared!

He is just beginning to say a few words here & there. He does seem to want to say so much more, but nothing seems to come out. His latest word is “eyes”, which of course is accompanied with a fierce jab into that unfortunate person’s face. Not only that, after being poke at, you are supposed to bear the pain and congratulate him on his excellent speech. Another word which he frequently says is “yayay”, which I am guessing means Tanay. Also he yells it out all the time. No surprise there. More than half of the time, I am doing the same.

This morning, I heard him stir while napping. When I went up to check on him, he opened his eyes for a bit, smiled and let out a “RAWR”. Before I could get a grip on myself, he went right back to sleep! Not only that, he woke up from his nap roaring like a baby dino! Looks like someone had a happy dream. Yeah, for most people, dinosaur dreams are nightmares. Not in our house.  No prizes for guessing where he gets that from!

When Tanay was a baby, Shubham believed that he was a Master in the Art of Torturing Parents. It was true. And now, it is Dhruv’s turn. He is a step ahead. Shubham calls him a Ninja whose speciality is SPEED!!

Now that you are familiar with Dhruv’s finger sucking capabilities, it is time for the Internet world to learn about his newest super power. Yes…. SUPER POWER! The kid can move his limbs so fast!! He is non-stop. He just doesn’t get tired!! I, on the other hand get completely exhausted just looking at him. And here, I was hoping for a mellow baby the second time around. HA! no such luck. This one is even worse! So much so, that Tanay is beginning to look like an angel in comparison!! And if you know Tanay…… you are probably saying…

“Woman! YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE!!”

I digress. Back to Speedy. Here is a short video to demonstrate our super powers. Don’t you get fooled by those chicken legs! They can pack a pretty powerful punch!

I just spent the last two days working on a post which was all about how tough motherhood is. How I had a really hard time with Tanay and how this time I wanted it all to be different. It turned out to be a pretty longish post too. Then just as I was previewing it, something made me stop. I turned around to see Tanay sleeping next to me in my bed and Dhruv asleep in his crib. And I just hit the delete button. Everything was perfect. All the hardships… all the pain… all the stress just melted right out of that post.

My boys are here with me. Happy & healthy. Nothing else matters.

Being a mother has undoubtedly been the most difficult job I have ever done in my life. The stakes just got doubled. Wish me luck!

On the way to school the other day:

Tanay: ” Dhruv is a crazy hair guy. Actually, he is a baby porcupine!”

Here’s why….

Little does he know that his own hair is not very different from this. I am seeing myself struggling with two porcupines in the coming future. I am exhausted just thinking about it.

Ever since I have re-entered Zombie land, life has been …. how shall I put it?! Interesting. I am handling the lack of sleep much better than I ever did with Tanay. Actually, Tanay is the reason why it is not affecting me as much this time. My body is already used to it.

Dhruv wakes up every 2-3 hrs to eat… if not earlier. He also seems to like waking up every hour after 3am. Wonder why he does that?! But then I wonder why he does a lot of things. I would rather not get into that right now. I wait for the night to go by, and luckily for me the sun rises at 5 am these days. Kinda fills my heart with joy when I see the light. However bad the night may be, my morning cup of tea freshens me up. It’s only towards late afternoon, early evening that the fatigue starts to creep in. This is also the time when Tanay comes back from school and Dhruv enters his fussy/crying part of the day. So, you can only imagine the mayhem! The only thing that gets me through is the knowledge that “this too shall pass”. (OK.. seriously…it’s not so bad…..at least not yet.)

A couple of nights ago, I was in my glider doing our 3am feed. At this time, I am so darn sleepy and Dhruv is the exact opposite. His big black eyes are wide open trying to look around in the dark room. He also picks this exact time every night to give me the sweetest, lop-sided smile I have ever seen. Of course that makes me go weak in my kness! What’s sleep in comparison to this.. eh?! The li’l bugger… he is already taking me for a ride! OK.. I digress. Coming back. So.. while he was nursing, I kinda dozed off for a few minutes. Long enough to have a dream. Rather a nightmare. Now, for the longest time I have been getting this dream. No.. not the snake one. But the one where, I have a test and I haven’t prepared, or where I have prepared for the wrong subject or where I failed the test. It is very disturbing and makes me really shaky. 

I woke up with a start, sweat on my brow, to find Dhruv fast asleep in my lap with a sweet smile on his face. I relaxed and told myself….”One day at a time….. I shall pass this test too!”