The Second Coming

One of the advantages of being sleep deprived is you can always blame your slightly erratic and weird behaviour on it. For instance, thanks to the wonderful Vodafone network at home, I received a friend's congratulatory message at 4 am the other day (night? dawn?). She had sent it the previous day. "Thanks a ton." I immediately texted, thrilled to have something else to do apart from being a human rocker for baby and making mental notes on the vegetables to be ordered the next morning. And then, just to demonstrate what a thoughtful friend I was (the ideal 4 am kind), I also added, “And how is little A? Fever gone yet?”

Big mistake. Little A is her son alright but the fever happened to Little B, son to yet another friend whom I had spoken to just that evening, a time that at 4 am seems million light years ago. Then again, I had the best excuse in the world. “Sorry,” I texted (and lied), “message meant for someone else. Blame it on the lack of sleep.”

The sleep deprived state also comes with other advantages. For instance you could always avoid boring dinners with the excuse that you need to be up and about a bit and night and therefore need all the rest you can. “Oh of course we completely understand,” says the not so interesting acquaintance before launching into an account of her own nigh time feeding schedule and how she always slept when the baby did, when he was born 10 years ago. “I do the same,” I say in my well practised heavy with sleep voice and go back to reading some enriching literature like Julia Quinn, which I plan to finish through the two mandatory wake up calls at night.

In the meantime, being a human rocker is fast becoming a habit. Went for a regular baby check-up at the hospital and had to remind myself that it was a) the nurse who was carrying the baby who b) was fast asleep and therefore c)I needn’t go back and forth on my heels.

Need to also stop posting baby pictures on FB, though can’t help myself with some nice ones. Since baby photos invite the mandatory coos and awwws after a point I run out of things to say apart from Thanks. Now would you ever do that in offline life? If a friend came over, looked the little bundle up and down and said awwwww, would you say, hey thanks? Probably not. So there.