Tuesday, August 21, 2007

To Sleep...Perchance, to Dream...Perchance, to Dream of Sleeping...

Sleep is really a precious commodity these days. Can you really expect otherwise with a 23 day old baby in the house?

Our co-sleeping issues have been admirably sorted out by the intrepid Vijay. Last week, he went on a hunt to find the ideal solution to fit our needs, and came back with this nice little baby mattress that has pillows which can be tied onto the sides to prevent her from rolling over. And now, we can peacefully keep the baby sleeping between us, and the dangers of either of us rolling onto her are drastically minimized. A good temporary solution until a crib is finally purchased.

Anyway, being a fairly light sleeper, at night, I notice Peanut squirming around and chomping angrily on her fist before she starts crying out loud - so I get up in order to feed her before she wakes the whole house up. However, these days, she is not exactly what one might call co-operative in this business of feeding. In fact, she seems to have been some sort of a predator in her last life - determined to attack, wrestle and kill her prey before eating it - she bursts into angry war cries while being fed and squirms and wriggles fiercely - even when it's not gas that's bothering her -and generally makes a whole lot of fuss, making it a long and difficult struggle to calm her down.

Late last night, after I emerged victorious from one particularly vicious struggle, finally managing to get her to quiet down and start feeding, I noticed a strange sound - it was a low, rhythmic thup-thup-thup emanating from somewhere nearby. Glancing over, I saw it was - wonder of wonders -my dear Vijay who was responsible for it. He had his eyes closed and was clearly still in happy slumber, but had evidently reached out his hairy paw in response to the baby's crying, and had been patting her back to sleep. Only, since she had been with me the whole time, he had actually just been patting her tiny yellow pillow to sleep, with a serene, fatherly expression on his face. I stared at him in bemusement while feeding the now silent Peanut. After a while, he seemed to notice that the crying had stopped. Clearly thinking he had, yet again, done an admirable job in his newly discovered role as SuperDad, he allowed himself a rather self-satisfied smile, gave the pillow one final loving stroke, slowly removed his hand and resumed his peaceful, dreamless sleep.

Below is a picture of Peanut in her new mattress - safe from the danger of being rolled on - not so safe from the hairy, loving paws of her Papa.


A close up of Peanut reveals the interesting message on her new white onesie, courtesy her lovely Aunty Richa.

7 comments:

  1. while I a big fan of this blog and against censorship in general, do you really think it's such a good idea to alienate both husband and baby daughter in one fell swoop?

    if you're not careful you'll be left with just vani and me :)

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  2. Awww... bad hair day? Poor girl! Wait till she grows up and shows her aunty richa that she's got long lustrous easily manageable hair! :))

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  3. Hi! I just bloghopped on here from Sue weblog.
    We used the same mattress for our four month old, while on holiday in India. How come you guys didn't get a little pillow with the set? I remember we did. Ours was a hideous orange with purple bears on it. PURPLE!! anyhoo, we're back home now and hana's back to sleeping on her lovely little white mattress with normal brown bears. :)
    also, maybe vijay's thing with lil peanut won't last too long. when hana was born my mister was the same, waking up with every movement, every whimper and the moment we hit the one-month mark, he magically slept through her (LOUD) wails. still does. haha.
    sorry, i'm hogging your comment space, but your post-baby posts i so identify with :)
    i'm @ www.babystory.wordpress.com

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  4. Priceless! Both the predatory Peanut and her deluded Dad:) Wish you'd photographed him patting the pillow to sleep:):):)

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  5. LOL

    Reminded me of a story I heard about my friend Dana. She used to howl nights (around the 2 month mark) and her father always jumped up and walked her, singing and rocking. Her mother is one of those slow wakers, and she would absently pat D in the crib going, "There, there, I'm getting up, I'm getting up."

    The parents took it in turns to wake up nights.

    Then they noticed that D howled longer and louder on Father nights, and while she had gotten used to piping down and going back to sleep when Ma was on duty!

    Little parenting lesson there (although The Bhablet refused to learn, sadly).

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  6. Ganju: That's the price of entertainment,I guess. On a side note, 'one fell swoop'? Who talks like that?

    Still Searching: She has another onesie which says 'I'd Rather Be Naked'. Am trying to get a shot of that one but she keeps dodging.

    Mona: We did get a pillow too but Vijay prefers to use a special pillow with a little groove for her little head.

    Dipali: I would love to have a picture of that but was a little distracted - the moment passed. Incidentally, he denies now denies havind done this vociferously. Says he was just patting the pillow to tell me to put her back there. But when I asked him why he would do that when I was feeding her, he changed the subject.

    Sue: :-) By the way, have added you on Facebook. Am telling you that here because I have no idea how to use it. What the hell are sticky notes?

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  7. How the hell am I supposed to know? I only use the ordinary wall and update my status!

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Hi there. Go on, say it. Well? WELL?