Let’s see if you can solve this little puzzle.

It cannot talk, but it is the most powerful communicator. Once it wants something, it knows how to express it effectively. It is so small but it has the authority of a king and the demands of an employer. Even more.

If you don’t concede to its demands, you’re going to suffer. Even your neighbours will suffer.

Have you figured it out yet?

It is the most helpless thing I’ve ever seen. It can’t sit, it can’t walk, it hasn’t even the control of its neck. Yet it can tell you when to wake and when to sleep. This is something that even a king doesn’t have the power to enforce – except if that king is an emperor.

What is this?

Of course, I’m talking about an infant. Today is one month birthday of our own. Only four weeks in the world! But she has already turned my home upside down. Especially our sleep and, possibly, our circadian clock.

But the mother suffers more. There are nights when I’m able to squeeze in some good sleep. The mother? Nada!

So the mother has recruited me into the suffering. For example, she wakes me up and ask me to take the baby.

And I have graciously accepted to be a willing participant. I’ve come to terms with my fate as a peasant under the Baby Emperor and the Mother Princess.

But I don’t measure up. When the baby wakes up in the middle of the night and I’m asked to walk with her, I sit immediately or after a few seconds. Because I’m so sleepy, I fear that if I walked, I may fall and drop the baby.

So the sleep-deprived mother is still not happy with my contribution: “How is it possible that immediately you return her to me you’re able to sleep within seconds?” She quarried. You can certainly blame Yoga for that one.

She added: “I don’t know which comes first, the baby hitting my hand or your snoring.”

Yes, I’m a snorer. (Is that a word?)

Sometimes, I’m accused of not lifting a finger. I was made to understand that the only thing I do is say a prayer.

“You wake up, you see us struggling, and all you say is “may Allah bless you, Mama.”

So now, when I wake up and see them struggling, I’m afraid of saying anything. I still want to say the prayer. So I just mumble it. That way, no one will hear me but my one and only God.

Sometimes, you want to make a suggestion. But it is usually shot down immediately with some biting sarcasm. .

“I think she needs her nappies changed.” I would say.

“Really? You think so?” She would shoot back instantaneously. Ouch!

What a wicked repartee.

First, I was hurt, “I was just trying to help!”

But then I remembered a story President Abraham Lincoln told about a boy who was employed to help dock ships. Whenever he went down to do his work, he would scream as if something was killing him. Later his bosses understood that whenever he did that, his life wasn’t in danger but he was calling their attention to witness the difficulty of the job he was doing. So all he wanted from them was to show appreciation.

Accordingly, instead of offering more stupid advice, I’ve resolved to simply appreciate my wife more. Because when she complains, she is not asking for advice but nudging me to see how difficult the job is.

May God bless our mothers.

I simply don’t know what I would do without my wife. May Allah her. Shh!

May Allah bless the baby too!

PS: Mama, if you’re reading this, I’m not flattering you so that you can let me sleep at night. But may Allah bless those who pity the commoners.

PPS: I need a paternity leave.

Series count: 58/100

• Ibraheem Dooba, PhD