To: Those bundles of joy!!!

Kids - this word invites many reactions like “Awww! So cute,” “Ewww! They are a trouble,” “They are a blessing” and many more. I heard this dialogue on a show “I like kids…. but from a distance,” which is true to some extent. Whenever we see a kid, how much do we adore their smile, their chubby cheeks, their naughtiness and what not? But wait, what if you are asked to be with the same kid for the whole day or two. You get to see the negative sides. Huge responsibilities which come with it and I don’t think so that I need to enlist these responsibilities here.

First of all, here is an alert: Never get too driven by their cuteness to get a picture clicked with them. Because if you do so, then the chances are fairly high that you’ll end up looking ugly in front of them, unless you are super beautiful/handsome. Their cuteness just overshadows, no matter how much you try.

Then they are treated like stars, not the ones you see in the sky but like celebrities. Once the toddler learns how to wave goodbye or a hello, people die to get their response; “Baby, say hello”, “Oh my god! He shook hand with me,” comes the super excited reaction. “Look he is dancing to the song” and then you turn around to see the dance which is nothing more than the slight movement of limbs. I mean c’mon even I can dance like that, but I am dead sure that my dance will not invite such reactions; such is their ‘star-power’.

The reason for this may be that when they were newly-born they were incapable of doing anything, quite literally. Then their developing cycle begins. You see their phases of development. It is no less than a wonder that a kid who couldn’t do anything few months ago is now learning to sit on his own, is now crawling, and trying to stand on his feet. When I saw this developing cycle for the first time I was thinking how do I manage to sit so effortlessly, Is it that hard to balance yourself when standing.

At the same time, I find them stupid (commonly known as their innocence). Take this, for instance, a few days back I went to a room and shut the door. My nephew, who was following me, couldn’t make out to which room I went. So he started crying standing in front of the other room. I opened the door, expecting him to cry facing the room in which I was. It was only after I opened the door that he got to know I was not in ‘that’ room but in the other room. Now you can call it innocence and stupidity as well.

Not to talk about them being teased (but I’ll talk about it). How easily they get teased. I remember it was my 7^th or 8^th birthday, my siblings gifted me a piece of paper with a photo of cigarette on it. When they handed it to me, I said, “Ewww! How can you give this to me that too on my birthday?” On hearing this, they proceeded to ‘Level II’; they took it back and acted like sprinkling something into my cup from that photo itself. I said almost crying “Mom look they have done something to my cup.” There are many such memories with me and I guess they got encouragement only from my hyped reactions. I used to get teased easily.

Now when I look back I find those incidents so-avoidable. Apart from this change in attitude, there are many other changes like a change in looks; but the fact which amuses me is that at one part we say the appearance changes drastically but the basic features are still recognizable. Once they are grown-ups, it is the time when they lose out on their fame, star power, celeb status. "Welcome to the world where you are not going to get the attention. You are a commoner now."