Holiday

It’s been a fulfilling couple of weeks as a father. Every jump and every cry, every leap I was there to catch. Every day was a milestone and every day a new something. Every stolen word you knew where it came from because you were there all along. Every tantrum you could decode what it meant and you could fathom the wiliness that strategised it. Those genes are mine you would point at the sly affect and the fake grins. I have always been there with him, but you realise in the whole being a provider thing you aren’t really there always. You see without an insight and you hear without an impression. These last couple of weeks I was there, running behind every misstep, wriggling out every mis-eat for the want of a better word. Of course, the mother is there and you split shifts by the hour but it’s just me and her and the slightly bigger stronger cousins and Ishaan wants to jump and play with them. And fall and cry, and still wants to join the gang. I am sure it made him tougher and humble but he was happy.

He ran around the Rocky Balboa’s Philly steps and the NY twin tower memorial and looked at the Empire state elevator going up in amazement and the horse carriages of the Central Park and slept while we steal a coffee by the Miami Beach. He loved the ducks at the Statue of Liberty and the boatride overseeing the Manhattan skyline. He loved the stroll in his pram between the Wallstreet avenues and hated the pizzas of NY. He loved the lakes at the DC monuments and the lawns full of maple leaves in their fall and ran behind the squirrels and seagulls. I am sure he didnt care about the White House one bit and all the ‘Praise the Jesus’ rallies outside. He was happy there were lots of people and lots of babies, which he made a point to point out!

We were tired always, the book I sought to read made a ticketless travel to the States, the shoes I got for a run couldn’t make it out of the box. This isn’t the routine, which we are so fond of but this was fun.