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.