DIY Parenting

Becoming a parent has to be one of the most transformative experiences ever.

It is like a major system upgrade that you drowsily accepted one night when it popped up on the screen of your cell, without bothering to read the fine print (does anyone ever really?), only to be completely and utterly gobsmacked when your screen suddenly goes blank in the middle of a frantic search for a cab. You feel breathless, gasping like a fish out of water; a veritable Toto far far away from comforting, commonplace Kansas where the sun was golden and the roads ran straight and true. And in my case this was but a shadow of what my helpmeet was going through. I would like to say that I am an evolved and empathetic 21st century male who is brimming with concern and understanding for what women have to endure during parturition, but I just don't have the right gonads to fully understand what my wife went through when our daughter decided to shove her way out into the world and throw the her innards into complete chaos. It is heavy duty stuff, bringing new life into the world, and you have to be lying if you say that it doesn't bring a fundamental change in you.

Everyone has their own unique journey of parenthood, I feel. There is no standard operating procedure, and certainly no compendium of soothing, unshakeable laws that define a fixed relationship between cause and effect that is sane and sensible. Babies don't work that way, no siree! Not for them the rules and routines that we adults rely on to order our worlds. Nope, these tykes are agents of primordial chaos and destruction that sweep through your lives and leave you dumbstruck and sleep-deprived, like a drunkard after a heavy night about town waking up in the ditch the next morning with no shoes and only one sock on. Not even the elegance of non-linear mathematics can make sense of their machinations. A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking for all its worth, but our little one won't give two hoots for the calisthenics of said lepidopteran. Thus you find yourself in the dimly-lit tiny bathroom of a nice cafe, wrestling with a diaper stuffed to the gills with otherworldly-smelling poop while the helpmeet tries to ensure that the child doesn't bang her head on the artistic minimalist tiles (true story). These travails in themselves are not unique, for all parents have their fair share of war stories to recount (and bore / abhor you with), but each particular combination of circumstances, dramatis personae and butterfly wing flaps creates highly individual experiences (and smells) that uniquely shape you and your sinuses.   

Some high-level mathematicians can probably make sense out of the seemingly infinite variables dominating our lives now; but we are just rolling with it, taking the intense rough with the incredible smooth that follows and triple-checking the diaper bag before every outing. We have read the books (mostly my wife, I could only make way through a couple), got a great full-time helper to help us navigate our way through parenthood (one of the perks of being in HK) and have a clear worksplit to manage during her holidays (I do diapers, mommy dearest does meals). And we pretty much have had to go through this on our own, given our little one is a Coronial and our respective families couldn't visit due to travel restrictions (which was irritating as *@#$). So we smell of smoke (and poop sometimes) 'cause we have been through the flames (and how!). It was tough for us, especially because this is the one time in your life that you really need all the love and support you can get and our families just couldn't be there with us due to the wee little aerial turds that were (and still are!) creating a global ruckus. But we adapted and we had some great friends to lean on (some of whom were on the same journey as us). It has definitely toughened us and brought us even closer together, and touchwood we seem to be doing all right seeing how utterly adorable, smart, sensitive and empathetic our daughter is.  

The other fascinating part of the journey is how much of a handyperson I have become. I have never been an outdoorsy, power tool-wielding, hog-riding, mountain-climbing, rough-housing kinda guy. Didn't really need to be one, growing up in India where labour is cheap and any life skill outside academics is  generally considered superfluous to requirements. I certainly never darkened the doorstep of any woodshop and would probably end up sawing of my own fingers if I was allowed to enter. I am also not an engineer (oh the humanity!), just a lowly maths graduate who doesn't remember a whit of even that given subsequent life choices (read: MBA followed by a career in finance). That being said, I have always had a nascent ability to figure things out when it comes to odds and ends around the house. Never really had cause to develop this much back home in the motherland, for you could always outsource such work cheaply to people much more handier than you. There was also no particular drive to own a tool box and do something with it. But that has changed since we made the move to Hong Kong four and half years back. Labour cost is much higher and people generally are more handy (especially given the mix of expats from different parts of the globe). And while I am not going around making beds and wardrobes and spending countless hours on a lathe, I do own a tool box now and can be relied upon to do minor odd jobs around the house. And becoming a parent has only added to that drive.

I have assembled multiple items already for the little one - cribs, bed, desk and chair, feeding chair and most recently and gloriously a rocking horse that she is just bonkers about. I have been excited and enthusiastic about each one of these projects, even though some of them were fairly complex and a pain in the arse to finish. I don't know if it is because I was closet woodworker all this time, is it the thrill of assembling a complex 3D puzzle, is it the warm afterglow of building something physical and tangible with your bare hands, or all of these. Or maybe it is just the sheer joy of a parent providing for his or her child, making her life incrementally more comfortable and joyous. In fact, it is mostly that. There is something magical about bringing something to life in front of her eyes (while fending her away from all the nuts, bolts and sharp edges lying around!), and extremely rewarding to then see her on that rocking horse, giddy with excitement. Probably the only way I can top this feeling is by building something from scratch (instead of assembling based on instructions). But one has to be realistic, and I would prefer continued use of all limbs and appendages instead of sacrificing some of them at the altar of the craftsman. So this is good enough for now and I continue to be on the lookout for more 3D jigsaws to play with for her benefit.

It is amazing, how a little toothy smile can just melt you heart and make you want to be a better person. My BAE did this a long time ago with her own lovely pearly-whites, and I continue my journey down this path of transformation and self-actualization. I don't know where this ends, or that if it ever does. I have this vague vision of turning into an Autobot at some point, but that would probably involve a lot more engineering nous that yours truly unfortunately doesn't possess. So I will be contented for now with a robot cleaner which I have affectionately christened Optimus Prime and look forward to what else life brings in the interim. 'Tis the journey that matters most, after all...