Be a fearless parent. Raise a child who gets into trouble

Got these beautiful words by Natasha Badhwar in my email today. Reminds me so much of Nisarga’s enterprising ways.

Raise a child who laughs in the face of fear. A child who respects his parents and protects his family even when he disagrees with them…
Raise a child who is not afraid of his own voice. Who does not hide to stay safe, especially when his silence can be used to target and hurt others.
Raise a child you are willing to learn from. A child you might have to hold protest rallies to protect one day. A child you will defend. A child you might have to hold candles to commemorate one day.

Be a fearless parent.

I am happy to report that one week after the surgery, Nisarga’s pain is minimal. He is still a little subdued (mostly because he can’t do much with half his body in a cast), but there is little pain, lots of smiles, and we even had a moment when he balanced himself well enough to raise both hands – something not really possible for him, because he used to need to keep both hands on floor to sit even briefly. I’m hoping this means that even with the support of the plaster cast, part of it is also that his hip is in position where it should be, allowing his weight to rest on it, instead of needing to use his hands.

It isn’t all easy. Movement for him is very difficult, and being comfortable can also be a pain when his body can’t really change position. It can result in some strange contortions like…

Nisarga sleeping in his spica cast

He is just not used to sleeping on his back, so invariably he wants to sleep on his stomach. But the first few days, he wasn’t comfortable on his stomach. When he fell asleep in the middle of changing his diaper (I had turned him like that to tuck the backside of the diaper into the cast), we decided to prop him into place if the position gave him enough comfort to fall asleep instantly.

The pain is better now. Will his movements also be?

Who knows? Only time will tell.

In the meanwhile, Nisarga has gone from trying to cut and rearrange my handmade soaps to trying to put the in plastic bags and shrink wrap them, because monkey see, monkey do, and mom isn’t cutting soap these days and we are each other’s best fans and pals. Like so.

Nisarga and Vidyut