Thursday, 5 July, 2018

Two things happened last night - one good and one bad. Good - Avani started saying “Mumma” - it’s more like Mum-mum for now but she’ll get there soon. Papa is not sure if she still knows she’s referring to Mumma. Mumma is sure of it. :P The bad thing is that Avani spent most of last night crying - she wept and wept and wept. She didn’t want to be coaxed to sleep. She didn’t want to go to Papa or Mumma’s lap. She just kept sitting and falling backwards and twisting, turning, twirling continually. Accompanied with that she screamed each time someone tried to help her sleep. This kept the harried parents up almost the entire night. Mumma even had to go to office the next day. The only thing that finally worked needed employment multiple times through the night was “walking and sleeping” - not to be confused with sleepwalking. Walking and Sleeping involves walking around and singing to baby Avani and not letting her know she’s being coaxed to sleep - it is sort of deviant but for the little baby’s good. It’s something that Papa had to empoy yesterday afternoon also.

Time: 16:58

Baby Avani is four handsful, not two :D Papa prides himself for being the reason for that gene. He’s bearing it with elan - hence in order to keep this journal going, he makes notes of times and tidbits so that the entries can happen at the end of day some from his memory and more from the notes.

The day started late - at 9 am - due to the eventful night. Baby Avani woke up crying but was quick to smiling again. She wanted Mumma right off the bat and Papa didn’t feel up to it today - one, because she wanted Mumma and Mumma had to go to office and two, because he was dead tired. Papa and Mumma had breakfast at 10 am while the little baby played around with her toy giraffe - it’s a toy from Mumma’s childhood brought to Hyderabad by Nani! Both of them were apprehensive how little Avani would react when she says bye to Mumma. However, that went well at 10:20 am miraculously and Papa felt a little more upbeat.

Avani was sleepy and Papa knew that it might be difficult. He employed the “walking and sleeping” tactic patiently. It was low but effective. In the bedroom, with the lights out and the AC on, Papa walked Avani about who knew nothing about being coaxed to sleep - still soon enough she was yawning and falling on Papa’s shoulders while he dished out ghazal after ghazal - soothing lyrics which he faltered and remembered but stuck to it to maintain the constant din of bad vocals. She finally gave in to sleep at 10:55 when Papa brought her to the horizontal position and brought her to the floor bed to continue sleeping independently.

Today the new mattress was to arrive which happened at 11:30 - Papa is still to figure out how it is - he’s currently dealing with a harsh chemical smell emanating from it. Papa and the delivery persons were sure not to wake the little baby up while they moved around the 3 mattresses in the house. She slept soundly through it all finally waking up at 1201. This is when baby Avani had her full milk (70 ml) and played till 1240 near the bedroom door with her trains and Papa. Oil Massage was done after this - not eventful. Little Avani twisted and turned which is normal behavior for this playful sweet dullu-pullu. She was taken to bathe at 1258 - no soap day. She first got a bath on her lounge-seat and then in the bathtub. As usual, baby wanted to stand in the bathtub but she was discouraged each time. However, once in between, she slipped and fell face first into the water and was picked up instantly. While getting dried, Avani got cranky and needed milk. Lakshmi got the milk bottle ready while Papa wiped Avani. Quickly, Lakshmi got back and dressed the baby up. The baby was fed milk (~70 ml) at 1315 again.

Time: 22:30

Then Papa and Avani were played in the last room for a while. Papa suddenly saw some small red marks on Avani’s T-shirt just below the shoulders - it looked like tiny streaks of blood. Papa turned Avani’s face and saw a nail-cut on the right side of the neck just below the cheekbone. Sad, Papa asked Lakshmi to cut her nails since the cut was not the result of Avani’s small cute nails and Papa has no protruding nails ever. Papa put Boroline on a struggling Avani’s wound. She had been given the Boroline tube as distraction which she had licked with her mouth. Papa feared if she had eaten some Boroline. He took a clean towel and cleaned her tongue - she enjoyed it and got it cleaned intently. Anything is welcome as long as she gets to lick it. :) Papa sat with Avani on his thigh while he mulled over the present and rocked Avani up and down slightly quickly. 3-4 mins into doing that he bent to look at baby’s face and saw that she had one line of tear running down her right cheek - the first he ever saw her crying like that - was it because of the pain? - he couldn’t be sure. :( He wiped her tear and took her to sleep.

After 15 mins of “walking and sleeping”, Avani slept off at 14:00 only to wake up at 14:30. Papa tried to help her go back to sleep but it didn’t work. After this, Avani walked around with Lakshmi while papa had lunch. Avani started lunch (khichdi) at 15:15 but stopped midway in spite of all tricks (eat with her, offer water in between). She started crying visibly hungry. However, she had only 30 ml milk while on her chair.

Slightly disturbed Avani during lunch - one of many expressions from today

She played around and had the rest of her milk (40 ml) in the next 40 mins. Finally Papa took her to sleep at 16:20 and Avani finally slept at 16:43 after “walking and sleeping”. Mumma came home around 17:15 when the baby was fast asleep.