It was a long boring weight at Bahrain International Airport waiting to board the flight back to Doha. Looking around, a young woman caught my eye. She was traveling alone but not quite alone for she was carrying an infant, and every other minute the baby smiled. There is probably nothing as refreshing as a baby’s smile. The world stands still and your tiredness evaporates. But how do you get a baby to smile? Tickle it’s feet or make funny faces? Each mother has her own secret. This woman was gently patting her infant’s lips and each time her baby responded with a dazzling smile. The woman then looked closely at her baby with a look that said, ‘You are so little but you are such a wonder, and you are mine.’
It’s wonderful being a father. I remember so many golden moments that only a parent would understand, especially with their first born: the baby’s first tooth,of trips to the supermarkets to buy special baby food till we learn how to make it ourselves. Then of various curious habits: my son, as a baby was fascinated by onions and potatoes. He would drop them, one by one, on the floor, pausing to listen to each dull thud. If we ever ran out of these vegetables we had only to search under the furniture. Our trips to the Corniche with him always became an extended walk. When it was time to come home, for every two steps he took towards the car, he would take four more – in the wrong direction.
My daughter was born four years later. By contrast, I don’t know how she grew up. One day I found her walking, another time, looking into her mouth, I saw she already had a number of teeth. One thing she knew right from the beginning, was how to worry her brother. Once my son came to me, looking scared and complained that his sister had been frightening him, saying that monsters were coming. “How?” I asked, quite puzzled, since my daughter hadn’t yet begun to speak. But sure enough, she said, “Motther come!” and was delighted to see her brother’s reaction. In those days I would usually bring my son some gift, each time I came home, usually candy. I wouldn’t buy anything for my daughter, thinking she was too small to understand and anyway couldn’t speak. But one fine day all that changed. She could not speak, but her look clearly said, “Where is mine?” From that day onwards I always bought gifts for both of them.
Some things women pick up fast, while we men are blind. There were times when my wife correctly sized up a domestic situation. Often, when I thought the children were spoilt brats and needed to be disciplined, my wife would say instead, “Go give them a hug, they need you now.” If you have seen the cartoon film, Dumbo, you would recall how the baby elephant was brought to his mother. The circus train was puffing away to its next destination, when the ‘postman’ stork suddenly descended through the clouds, looking for Mrs Jumbo. After handing over the baby to her, the stork recited these unforgettable lines,
“Here’s a baby with eyes so blue,
straight from heaven, unto you.
Or, straight from heaven up above,
here is a baby for you to love.”
Then the stork added, “Sign here please,” significant words, indeed and a reminder that we are accountable for the way we bring up our children. Then there is a poem, which some of us must have learned in school, about a little boy, whose father had punished him and sent him, crying to bed. Later, when the father came along to see whether his son was asleep, he found that the child had arranged his favourite toys around his pillow, to console himself and then had cried himself to sleep. Seeing this, the father bitterly regretted having been so harsh, and himself shed tears. We try not to, but perhaps there are still times when we take our children for granted, or don’t give them the space or the freedom to choose.
By the time my daughter was six, she was renowned as a collector-of all sorts of junk, which she called her treasures. My wife threatened several times to throw out her entire collection, but it was her treasure box that once saved our day. One morning, before school, we desperately needed to contact the parent of another child in her class, but we did not have the phone number. Seeing us search, our daughter went to her treasures and from a box produced a scrap of paper. On it, in a childish scrawl, was the phone number we required. The other child was her best friend. It was a long time before we nagged her about her collection again.
