Separation Anxiety

Traveled to Texas from Wed to Friday on business. The kids saw me on wednesday morning, when I dropped them off, and got to see me again only last night when they woke up in the middle of their sleep.

Why is this a big deal in today's small world where our jobs take us to all parts of the globe on a routine basis?

Well, this is the first time daddy did not put the little one to bed, since she was BORN! Jr. went through the same thing three years ago when Daddy went to Minnesotta for a whole week. She lost a few pounds, managed to lose her voice just by non stop screaming. The two things that mitigated the side effects at the time were, my parents were here to give her extra attention and she was not talking that well. She was only 16 months old.

This time, Jr. adapted well. She talked to me on the speaker phone. Said she missed me and wanted me to come back, and understood that Daddy will come back.

The little one on the other hand, just went beserk. Even after I was back, she did not know how to accept me! She woke up at 1:00 AM and did not know if it was really daddy who had appeared on the bed. She had delayed the bedtime in hopes of daddy arriving on time, but the flight did not co-operate.

To check and confirm she sent daddy through the usually expected tasks, much along the lines of Hercules being sent on errands.

Daddy Paal (milk)
Daddy Dipee (change my diaper)
Daddy mook (get a tissue and blow my nose)
Daddy Valikaadhu (I have pain) give me medicine (!!!!)
Daddy mudugu (give me a back rub)
Daddy I am scared (this means I have to take her to the pooja shelf and put some ash on her forehead)

Daddy would normally not complain for this, were it not for the fact that he had got up from bed at 5:30AM in Texas (which was 3:30AM California time) and it was a loooong day with a three hour flight staying in the air for four hours! Also there was no break time between the tasks. It was practically back to back errands. Finally she slept at 3:00 AM.

The hope is that she will get used to dad's disappearences and reappearences with time, now that she knows that the guy actually does show up after a few days! She is probably going to hate the word "Texas" without ever actually going there, much like how San hates Minnesotta without ever having visited the place. Used to leave San all alone and disappear for a week at a time when we were just married. San has not forgotten.

The little one is her normal smiling self again. However she is extremely clingy with daddy. Even if dad goes to the bathroom we hear the "Please take me with you daddy!". Based on previous experience with Jr., this phase will last at least a few days.

This post is specially for the Little one. Remember, if some day you disappear on me for days on end when you are in high school or college and you are wondering what all the fuss is and why daddy is all worried, READ THIS POST, to see what you did when daddy went away for a few days!

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Could it be?

My wife seems to get on my nerves exactly the same way my mom used to get on my dad's nerves.

If your thought process is drifting towards "Sundar, don't be stupid. San and your mom are both women. You and your dad are men. This is standard operating procedure!",now, hold that thought.

There are a million variations of annoying a guy. My MIL pisses off my FIL, but her modus operandi is completely different. The irritation factor is there, but the things that irritate FIL are way different than things that irriate my dad! I also get to observe similar phenomena with my brother, BIL, friends, other relatives.

Okay, now if you are thinking "Sundar, But you and your dad are genetically similar. Maybe the same things piss you off!".

Granted that I grew up swearing to myself, not to be like my dad when growing up, but invariably the genetics catch up and Sundar at 35 is not very different from his dad at 35. Sundar at 12 was a lot different from his dad at 42, but who knew!

Still, it takes two to tango, or foxtrot, or waltz, or quick step or viennese waltz for that matter. That said, San is not genetically related to my mom! Then how come she manages to tick me off, the same way my mom irritates my dad? This got me thinking last night...

Is San becoming who she is because she has to constantly deal with me? Is that because I am increasingly approaching my dad as I grow older? Or am I becoming who I am because of constantly dealing with her? Are we essentially reliving what my parents lived through? How come we are not reliving what her parents went through when she was young? Or was it very similar? Does this mean that my kids are going to suffer a lot? Why do I sound like Deepak Chopra? etc. etc.

A million (okay, okay, a few dozen!) questions race through my mind now. At this point, cannot even think of a scientific experiment to prove or disprove any of these thoughts! Well, we watched Deepak Chopra on PBS, so at least the last question has an answer.

Should we even bother with the "will try to be different than our parents" bit? Is it pure naivete that drives us to think we will be any better than our parents when we are kids and once we have kids of our own, we grow up and realize why they were always pressed for time, tense, unable to focus a lot of times, make the decisions they made, etc. etc.

As I am about to hit the bed, can only think of one thing an ex-boss told me when his second kid was born (this was during my bachelor days).

"The world has two types of people. People who go through parenting and people who don't!"

Seems to sum up my thoughts for the day!

ps. Apparently this post makes it look like I am "Buddha" personified and that fact alone is getting on her nerves!

pps. We don't always irritate each other. Only when we bark orders to the other person when screaming kids are involved.

ppps. I get on her nerves as much as she gets on mine, but this is MY blog!! ha ha ha..

pppps. The ppps. should have read "I get on her nerves much much more than she gets on mine".. (Thanks to a reader for pointing that out..)

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