Sleeping with the Fishes

Sidharth sometimes gets up screaming and bawling in the middle of night, maybe because its is too hot/cold for him or on account of a nightmare or for some unimaginable reason that I care to comprehend, at 2 or 3 AM in the morning. But we sure do hear him wail and he lets us know in no uncertain terms that he is not happy. This does not happen often, but the nights that he does get up, I can safely kiss a few good hours of my precious sleep goodbye.

Sidharth sleeps next to us in his crib, despite the fact that his room is ready for his occupancy with the sky, stars and clouds painted and completely child-proofed, his mother is unwilling severe the umbilical cord yet. So it falls on my onerous shoulders to lull him back to sleep, whenever he does wake up. Ah, but that’s not quite as easy as it sounds. A few months ago just pacing around in the aisle with his head resting on my shoulders would lull him to sleep and soon I would feel his rhythmic, gentle snores on my shoulders. After which I would gingerly lay him down in his bed and cover him with his blanket, thereafter he would sleep peacefully till morning. As months have passed, he dourly refuses to give in to sleep by just pacing up and down the aisle. Subsequently I have tried to rock him to sleep on our rocking chair. To no avail. Sing lullaby’s to him gently. Made the crying even worse. Tried to feed him warm milk, from his bottle of course. He’d contemptuously dismiss the bottle of milk aside, as if to admonish ‘Could’nt you think of anything better , you git ?’. Finally one early morning I discovered that he falls asleep to the sounds of gentle waves and fish bubbles. Eureka…jackpot.

Our computer has a screensaver of fishes of various sizes and hues swimming and periodically a mean looking fish makes its way to the centre of the screen and gravely intones ‘Did you backup today ? Did you ? Did you ?’. Well at 2:00 AM in the morning, the last thing I need to be reminded is about backups. Nevertheless when Sidharth’s crying gets out of the control and the pacing, the rocking and feeding does not work, I make my way to the computer. Balancing a wailing baby precariously on one shoulder, and sidestepping the land mine Sidharth toys strewn all over the house, we make it to the computer room, which is on a floor below the bedroom. And once we make our way to the computer, I run the screen saver program. It is dark outside and the entire world is asleep, well at least this side of the hemisphere is sleeping. Most times this technique works effectively. Either sitting in my arms while facing the computer and looking at the fishes and lulled by the sounds of the waves, Sidharth goes to sleep or he turns over and rests his head on my shoulder followed by baby snores after some time. This technique have never ever failed me. So I gingerly tiptoe my way back to the bedroom, place him back in his crib and cover him very delicately with his blanket, and go back to sleep. It’s still very dark outside.