If you’ve grown up in the nineties, you’d know that I ripped off the title of this post from Buzz Lightyear’s immensely memorable line: “To Infinity and Beyond!”

For the mother of a little boy, sanity is a lot like infinity. Undefined, blurred at the margins… always tantalisingly calling out … and always a little beyond reach.

It’s something you’re always aspiring for, never able to attain. Except that as your child grows older, it feels less unattainable.

The kid is almost 7 now, and lately I’ve been feeling a lot saner. For over five long years we’ve had daily—and I mean daily—battles over brushing teeth (both morning and evening) and washing face with baby soap or face wash or anything other than water.  Every single day for almost 6 years, 365 days a year, my mornings began with battle cries and tiny foot stomps and failed negotiations and failed reasoning and explanations and in general every day started off with a black mood. Insanity and more insanity.

And now, two episodes happened that suddenly made our mornings amazingly smooth, because kiddo meekly goes and brushes his teeth without even being told to, and washes his face carefully with baby soap. No battles whatsoever. Zero. Zilch. Whew!

What happened? Two awful things. Kid got a terrible skin infection with sores on the face and had to take antibiotics along with local application of ointments, and was told by the doctor that he hadn’t been keeping his face clean enough. I glanced at him, half agonised at his predicament and half I-told-you-so. The infection went away soon, thanks heavens, but it left something important in its wake: a lesson.

The second thing was a cavity in one of the teeth, and no, I’m a very strict mom when it comes to chocolates and junk food. Nevertheless, the dentist informed him gently that he’d probably missed brushing his teeth quite a few times, which is when the bacteria attacked. And this was true. He would miss the night brushing quite often simply because I used to be exhausted with the constant fighting and give in. Thankfully, these are just his milk teeth and will be replaced by the permanent set anyway, and a filling is all it took. But as with the other case, what was left behind was more important. The lesson.

(I was actually apprehensive writing about this bit, because I would immediately be judged for being a bad mom or a neglectful one. However, now that I look back at my childhood, I got measles around the age of 6 and I too had a cavity by the age of 7—despite not being the candy chewing kid at all—and no, my mom wasn’t a neglectful one at all. More of the constantly anxious, helicopter variety of parent. Do I think she didn’t do a good enough job of bringing me up? Do any of us ever think our moms didn’t do a swell job of raising us? My point exactly. Every mother is doing her best.)

So just like that, within a month, two of my daily battles were won.

But the battles were won at a cost to the child (and therefore to the mother as well). The child had to suffer—and I use the word suffer in a loose, relative sense because suffering for a child is completely different from ‘suffering’ as it’s meant for adults. The smallest grief to a child becomes as great as ‘suffering’, simply because his capacity to take it is far less. Compared to what he can hold, the pain is far greater. And that is why, as we grow older, our sufferings increase in size— because our capacity to take them also multiplies, bit by tiny bit of pain.

From what Khalil Gibran said, that should also mean a proportionate increase in our capacity to hold joy: “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can hold.” But that strangely doesn’t occur, does it? The child seems to have a much greater capacity for joy than the adult. Perhaps… perhaps that happens because we begin to shut ourselves off to joy, for fear of the pain that comes alongside. Perhaps. Who knows?

Pain is a good teacher. It helps you understand things far easier than all the logic and science and reasoning in the world. That, at least, is what I’ve concluded, having watched my son transform almost overnight.

So yes, I’m a saner mom now. And every day when little H snuggles in my arms at night, (yes, he still sleeps in our bed and yes, I’m a total sucker) I feel fortunate and overflowing with love. It’s a simple, uncomplicated feeling. One that I’m astonished to feel, given the sort of conflicted mom I’ve always been. It makes me see how the world goes on and on about the ‘bliss of motherhood’. Just took me longer to experience it. A WHOLE lot longer.

Or maybe, it was just pain carving into my being, enabling me to hold a lot more joy.

I suppose things will get easier from here onwards. But who knows? I may yet be carved further. For the moment though, I’ll just keep moving ahead steadfastly like Buzz Lightyear, believing I can reach the unreachable.

To sanity… and beyond !