By virtue of being constantly present with the kids all the time and their fathers being absent from the scene more often than not, it becomes the proud privilege of us mothers to automatically fit into the first place in our children’s most preferred list. However, it comes as a big and many a times difficult to digest shock when children choose to change priority or for that matter even show signs of it, to start turning for small little things from Mommy dear to Daddy dearest.

When my daughter was born, taking care of her came quite naturally to me whereas for my husband, things required quite an effort. The thought of having a baby in the house is one thing and to actually have one, is another.

With the birth of our first one, it suddenly dawned on me that no matter how excited my husband was at the prospect of having the newcomer in the house, the man who eagerly helped me through my vomiting days, was certainly hesitant helping with the nappies. The man, who was quite sensitive to my tears, somehow was driven to his wits’ end when he heard the baby cry at night. My pillar of strength suddenly went week in his knees every time our daughter smiled and yet he avoided taking turns with babysitting at night. He had his own ideas on how stubborn babies were to be fed and those on how they loved to play the- lets get rough, game.

All through the initial two years of bringing up our daughter, my ‘speak out your discontentment’ sessions with my husband, always had the list of things I did alone, irrespective of the fact that his job made him unavailable throughout the day. But as my daughter grew and stepped into the chatterbox stage of three plus, I suddenly found my husband catapult into a hands on dad. He began feeding her at mealtimes, began taking her out for walks, to the park and even indulged her with, out of the way surprises.

And what a surprise it was for me! On asking he smiled and said “I’m not too good with babies, but toddlers are fun to be with.” And true to every word he really knew how to have fun with her and she too eventually started finding him more fun to be with. Leaving the memories of me being the preferred one a few years back, as a consolation.

But then along came our second baby and I was in for bigger surprises. Just when I was least expecting it, having reconciled to the fact that babies were not his domain, my husband began helping with the nappies, diapers, soiled sheets and what not, he began taking turns when our son would trouble at night and has even tried to make him eat his cereal with all the patience in the world.

The day I saw our ten month old finally lulled by to sleep by his Daddy, who himself was fast asleep one hand cradling our son and the other hugging our daughter, I realised how much my husband had changed over the years, as a person , a husband and more than the others, as a father.

Men. I realised have their own set of adjustments to make as kids come into our lives and they take their own sweet time to do that. But once that’s taken care of, there’s no stopping them. There are times when I am just a spectator to the relationship my kids share with their Dad. Times when they prefer him to me, times when he prefers them over me. But I understand that these are not the times which make me less dear to them, rather these are those special moments which make Daddy the ‘dearest’ of all. And these are the moments most treasured by me.

So, today as I write this I can say that babies change our lives in more ways than we imagine. A change we all love, only that, ‘Daddy dearest’ takes time to accept.