Night-time Woes

 Lately Kup seems off color. She is getting more irritable and cries inconsolably at the drop of a hat.
The poor thing tries so hard to sleep and that too for hours..the cute night time routine which had her zonked in about 45 minutes now stretches to a murderous 3 -4 hours.. SN and I are at our wits ends..these days we
barely talk coherently..Trying to find the right words can be so difficult sometimes.And since he knows what I mean anyway, why bother?It s so nice when chemistry works that way.(sigh..)Do I sound mushy? I think it must be sleep deprivation..Being blessed with oodles of patience and goodwill, SN
is taking it much better than I. It also might be due to the fact he gets to be with Kup only at night.
 I think it might be because she is teething and the inflammation of her gums generally gets worse at night. SN comes home at around 8pm at which time, I and Kup go to meet him at the bus stop and walk back home..He loves carrying her , so I usually end up pushing the empty pram..But this has been stopped for a couple of days because of the early night falls and Kup's woes..By this time I would already have supper
ready and after a cuppa by about 8: 30pm, we'd start on baby bath time..
 This one is papa's speciality and she loves him make a song and dance routine with it. In fact you wouldn't
believe the number of funny songs he has come up so far..Sometimes it is quite hard for me to keep a straight face. Bath time is always fun. She tries to grab the shower head , so to distract her we keep a small
violet ball in the water which sometimes she keeps in her fist even after towelling.
 I have been trying to get her a rubber ducky that squeaks when squeezed but so far with no luck. I thought it was such a funny simple little thing. I have searched  in the toy sections of various supermarkets as well as in toy shops. The sales persons sometimes don't even understand what I want. I admit my French is not the best, but still it should not be this difficult..They either give me an assortment of 20 toys complete with a bath book(whatever that means) or some soft toy that is battery operated. Exasperated, I searched online only to find it is a collector's item; you can get a collection of 25 ducks for $16 on Amazon.Or you could order them custom-made. Even Queen Elizabeth is supposed to have one in her tub; one wearing a crown..Which makes me wonder about the amount of totally unnecessary information we are exposed to on the net daily.

But enough of that. I am digressing again.
  Meanwhile comes the argument about what to wear. This involves checking the forecast for night temperature, the availability of
various pieces of clothing which at that very moment decide to go into hiding,..By the time Kup's clothes are on the correct parts of her anatomy, the room resembles the Battlefield of Helms Deep(Lord Of The Rings)
 Next comes the feeding. Till about a week ago, Kup loved to eat and would finish whatever was spooned into her mouth. But these days Kup takes any attempt to feed her as a personal insult.She used to love fruits
a lot but now when it comes near her she just tries to get away..it seems the 23 paternal chromosomes are finally winning the battle..Not that there was much chance for the maternal ones in the first place. On top of it, she has episodes of spit-up ; again something new. At least she is getting some of her nutrition as I am still nursing her.Though this is not enough for her, some days she wont have anything else. Time trickles by like molasses and dinner is waiting
on the stove. To quote Salimkumar in 'Kalyanaraman' "Enthinovendi thilakkunna sambar..."
 For some time, we tried the Baby Einstein videos and various lullabies on YouTube..Previously they had
worked like a charm, but lately all they do is make both of us more sleepy while Kup is actually getting more active..We tried rocking and walking her around, again no go..Altering the time schedule didn't help either..
Breastfeeding at regular intervals was our only hope..Each time hoping this would do the trick..In spite of my
b...s feeling like they are about to come off, it still continues like this. The funny part is that her day time naps haven't
changed at all. By about eleven thirty or later, she finally drops off. By this time,we either forget about dinner
Sometimes we sneak off one at a time to gobble the food. Once asleep also, she wakes up more than once
to nurse, and sometimes has difficulty going back to sleep. By around 5: 30; she usually ends up between us.
But she magically senses when I get up to go into the kitchen and starts crying immediately.. So by the time she looks something like this : we look something like this :

 That black thing she's clutching used to be a jacket of mine.We kept it in her bed for her to cuddle but now she seems not to like it any more...occasional drops of Pmol help to some extent..Sunday she fell asleep at nine o clock..Congratulating ourselves on our luck, we immediately sat down for dinner and poured a glass of wine for afterwards. The first decision turned out to be good, the second one not so. By the time we finished our meal, Kup woke up and started crying. I fed her, thinking she would go back to sleep.We were planning to catch some movie.Well, to make a very long story short...the movie still in the box, at 12 :30
since we could not pour the wine back into the bottle, we gulped it down, at one o clock, I told SN to sleep since he had to work on Monday, till 1 :30 am, I sat with Kup in my lap looking at parenting sites
learning nothing new..At around 2 o clock she slept.. Morning 7: 30 she was fresh again...while we stumbled around trying to follow our routine.
 We did console ourselves by thinking about our friends who recently had twins...By the time they reach 7 months..well I am not finishing that thought...Bonne Nuit Amigos..those lucky amongst you, enjoy your sleep
while you can...