My New Pastime: Fishing

I have a new pastime. Fishing. Nope… not the kind you do in serene settings, at a riverbank, with no one to hurry you. Where the trees rustle in the gentle breeze, and where you doze while you fish for the ultimate catch… Noooo, not that kind.

This is the kind of fishing where you are always tensed, always worried, always on the lookout. And each time you do catch something, you go, “Damn!”

I am in that phase of my life where I am constantly fishing things from my younger daughter’s mouth. Trust me, the house is swept nearly four times. Each time though, she finds something or the other to put in her tiny little mouth. One time it was a stray piece of thread, and the other time I was horrified to find a dead winged ant! Short of tying her hands or taping her mouth, there is little I can do to avoid it.

How do I know when to fish?

1. When there’s a suspicious silence. It heralds trouble, each and every time.
2. When I haven’t fed anything but the mouth is moving.
3. When my baby is suspiciously happy.
4. When I had seen her a few moments ago, scraping the floor with her index finger.

I know that every baby puts stuff in its mouth. I know that it is their mechanism to understand the world around them. But come on, when it isn’t the carcass of a departed invertebrate, it is other equally boggling stuff like a leaf, a tiny piece of paper, my older daughter’s crayon, etc. Give her something especially to put in her mouth, like a teether or a chewy, and it gets thrown away without so much as a thought.

A friend recently told me that she fished out a nail from her daughter’s mouth. I also remember an incident when my nephew was a baby, where he put Gomutra in his mouth. Now Gomutra sounds pious. Translate it in English and you will be disgusted as well.

There is not much I can do about it though, except watch over her like a hawk. The silence is a total giveaway. That is my first clue that something is, well… fishy!

It baffles me though, that given good food in a bowl with a spoon, she absolutely refuses. But if she ‘finds’ a food kept in a corner on a plate (a finger food like shakkarpara) off it finds its way into the little lady’s mouth. Therefore, I have worked out a strategy where she “finds” stuff to put in her mouth. I still keep a watch, because the newly erupted tooth means that a wedge bitten off a finger food can be a source of problem, but it usually isn’t.

It’s a win-win situation. I don’t have to fish, and she doesn’t get irritated about being held back.

Dr. Gauri Kekre is a clueless, 30-year-old woman, who still has to find her calling in life. A dental surgeon by education, she has almost given it up to be a mommy to her two beautiful girls. She loves to be a ‘jack of all trades’ and dabbles some in writing, cooking and her latest fad, sewing. She writes off and on for her blog Mind Brew and you can find her as @drgaurikekre on twitter (although she seldom uses it). Amongst the things she loves are her mom, her husband, her daughters and people in general.