For want of a better title - Change! When did that creep in?

Today, I went home for lunch to see the little fellow, fast asleep in his crib. Some days he'd be awake, and a torrent of naughty ideas, flow one after the other, strikingly incessant. Some days he'll run to me, hug my knees and ask to be carried. And on many days, I will be ignored like the clock in the house, and his attention will all be directed towards his care-taker, as if I just did not matter to him. Those days, I feel sad.

Although I went back to work a whole year after Chittu was born, pangs of guilt accost me like a villian. We even moved our home so that my work place is less than a five minute walk from my home. I have the luxury of going home for lunch, not as much for a warm meal, as for checking on the baby, and reassuring myself that things are ok. But I still feel bad telling my son every morning, that I have to go to work, and will be back to play with him by lunch time.

Rewind, to my years of college, where I took pride preening myself as a feminist, and not accepting why at all the institution of marriage should change so many things in a woman's life. I cannot believe that I have little threads tugging at my heart as I step out of the house every morning. Nobody told me to change. The Scientist is most supportive of my decisions. And yet the cross roads seem inevitable.

I  like to maintain that for all the effort I put towards securing good grades in school and college, being in some form of employment that earns me a remuneration is very gratifying. That being said, rushing back home to my son every evening fills me with a swelling anticipation. There is nothing that I can compare it with. And certainly, I did not at all expect all this about having a baby.