Zzzz...

Ok, so when we blithely and thoughtlessly entered this adventurous phase of life known as parenthood, there were plenty of things our friends told us...like two of them were horrified at the amount of glass-type stuff in our living room - glass-topped tables, vases, Swarovski figurines et al...like all the women would tell me gory stories about delivery until my fantasy was that the baby would decide to stay inside forever...but truly, no one thought to tell us that sleep-deprivation was going to become a way of life forever.

And this is when we have good kids that actually learned to sleep through the night quite early on.

But then, no one told us that the only time we'd have the time for a conversation with just the two of us was after the munchkins were asleep...or that that'd be the only time we could read, pay bills, account for all my spending, fight, watch non-kiddie movies...or other stuff ( well, the other stuff we kind of guessed). And no one told us that munchkins would be diabolical enough to inherit my insomniac tendencies...

Friday night, Puddi decided she'd show me what she was capable of - and here's me, a career insomniac who's now so sleepy she just has to see a pillow and zzz...whassat?? Puddi went to bed like a good girl by 9 pm, woke up wailing at 10:30, woke up wailing at midnight...and then decided sleep was a nefarious plot cooked up by adults to deprive her of playtime. That kid was up, babbling, cooing and playing until 5 in the morning, walking all over my face and her dad's, pulling pill bottles and the towering stack of books on my bedside table down, asking me to 'kahani shunaiyye'. Taking her back to her room didn't help - their room has a jungle theme with giant pictures of animals so she was busy defining each of them, the noises they make and naming them...gee bha la ( zebra); aane ( elephant)...No amount of song-singing helped either, in fact that only served to stimulate her choreographic abilities. Finally, finally, at five, she asked to be taken back to her own bed in her own room and fell asleep in minutes.

Alas, by this time, not only was I too tired and hungry to sleep but the main road that DLF has thoughtfully made in the middle of a residential area ( for rants on this, turn to We are like this only) was throbbing with truck engines being revved up, cement mixers churning, assorted demented Delhi drivers honking as if they had forgotten how to take their fingers off the horn; in replacement of our formerly bucolic soundscape of birds chirping, doves cooing and the gentle hushing of the wind...

Then Chubbocks decided he'd show us what was what on Saturday night, by waking up at three in the morning and not going back to sleep; chatting incessantly as he always does...and finally Sunday night - first the Puddi finally shows the after-effects of her measles shot by developing fever and therefore whimpering all night...the husband is stressed out and snores merrily...and then wakes up at four am to catch a flight, thus jolting me out of nod-land...and Chubbocks decided summer is here by waking up at five am...

No wonder I need a fulltime job - the office is where I sleep...