My daughter turned one year a couple of months back. According to the modern world standards she was quite grown-up to be sleeping in her own room. Being an Indian I come from a very different background. As I kid I never had a room of my own. I always shared a room with my brother. And everybody i knew shared a room with their siblings. I don’t even know when I got moved into ‘MY OWN ROOM’ for that matter. I think a lot of it is credited to the fact that we never had a house big enough to have an individual room. That’s how most of the Indian houses are. Or maybe it’s the fact that the kids in America are far more independent than the kids back in my home country. Or maybe it’s a special Indian bonding thing. Whatever it may be, it never seems odd to me when somebody tells me that their little one is sleeping with them. that’s exactly how I grew up.
But every time I talked to my American colleagues, it felt like a big thing to me. I was always inspired to let Aanya have her own room. Well so much for the inspiration… we finally made up our mind to do so. We made her sweet little room (no pom pom, no magic) just some of her favorite things around, converted her crib and BOOM it was all ready. The night came, I put her to bed… but never imagined that it could be the longest and the heaviest night for me. I wiggled in the bed for some time, shed a couple of tears and then I declared… It might be a right decision to move my darling little girl but that was it. I was moving along with her! And the next moment I was sleeping on a sleeping bag next to her bed. A couple of days past, i was still not ready… and this gets hilarious when I think of it now…eventually DH moved too!! We did this for a week and watched her sleep peacefully night after night. It made my heart cry when I figured out it was time to move back and let her be… my sweet little angel!!
And I learned that there are many more hardships waiting down the road for me, many more goodbyes to come, many more days when I’ll see her walk away from me and I would just sit there and watch her till the time the mommy inside me said… she’s going to be just fine!!
 |
 |
 |
PS: In my other blog I have shown that I really suck at taking pictures. I am hoping that this will be a turning point in my photography skills :-)
