Chez Moi

My baby cousin Shraddha, my uncle’s daughter, died earlier this morning at 9.00 am IST. She would have been three in February.

I cannot wrap my mind around this. I do not want to believe it. I woke up this morning when my aunt rang from Chennai at 4.15 am GMT - since then things have taken a surrealistic note. I am hearing, in an endless loop, my aunt’s heart wrenching “Shraddha poyittaa” followed by shuddering tears. I even feel that if I go back to bed, sleep awhile and wake up, this will all be a dream - a nightmare - and things will be alright again. But my aunt’s voice in my ear is no imagination.

Shraddha has indeed gone.

She is leaving us physically as I type - the van from the crematorium is outside my grandparents’ house, to take a tiny person on her last journey. Too young to cremate but not too young to die.

As I feed my baby, pat her to sleep, my heart goes to my maami, who would have done the same to put my cousin to bed. How is she to survive this?

What horrible fate is this that a toddler shy of her third birthday gets snatched away so early?

Whenever I read reports of a person recently gone and I come across their character descriptions, always along the lines of “they were special, the light of our life, best friend/son/daughter ever” and think how can they all be so good. But now I am saying the same thing about Shraddha. In her short life, she really shone brighter than anyone.

Started talking really early, with clear diction. Extremely well mannered and behaved. The highlight of the family trip to Coorg last year when, barely a 16 months old, she proceeded to copy P and ate noodles with a fork perfectly, all by herself. Weekly calls home were always full of her antics. Even recently, she wowed everyone during Navrathri by reciting shlokas perfectly.

October 2007 was a dark month in my family history. That was the first time Shraddha got fits, after a few days of fever. She spent most of that month at Child’s Trust hospital, undergoing tests. Barely two, she never complained much, didn’t have meltdowns, just behaved with amazing aplomb. She once famously told her mum to tell the doctor she is busy reading a book and can the doctor come later. This was when she was flat on her back in the hospital bed, with a book held upside down in front of her!

She just couldn’t wait for my daughter to be born. Every day till The Mintlet arrived, she used to ask everyone at home if the baby has come. Last week, she asked to ’speak’ to the baby and told everyone that the baby will call her ‘akka’ (big sister) and how she will carry the baby on her hips everywhere.

Now this cute as a button, smart baby is no more. What cruel fate is this?! Where’s the justice in this innocent child being buried wearing the outfit she saved to wear on her brother’s birthday next month?

Why did you have to shine so bright, Shraddha, only to leave us so soon? Were you too special for us? Would you have been with us had you been less special, less precocious, more ordinary? Were you too good for us?

Rest in peace, dear heart.

And how unbelievable is that?! A whole month has gone by. I will not lie to you and say it has sped away in the blink of an eye but the second half of it certainly did seem to whiz past at times.

One month of sleepless days and nights, colicky screaming, hunger pangs and interminable screams interspersed with gappy smiles (albeit in her sleep), beady eyes following us around, gazing about her in awe and generally being her own tiny person. She is chatty - gabbling away to herself when she feels like it. She has special ‘words’ already; ones that sound lovely from her baby mouth, which will look pathetically silly if I try to duplicate here. Her absolute favourite person happens to be her big brother, who cannot wait for the day he can carry her around. To do what, I wonder - I am sure once I say he can pick her up, he’ll promptly put her down again and go back to his Ben-10!

My ickle daughter also loves company - preferring to sleep in her bouncer/day-cot in the lounge when her brother is around rather than the comfortably quiet bedroom. Like her brother, she’s also colicky and gives vent to some hair-raising yells when the spirit moves her.

She hasn’t got the hang of the fact that she is tiny, barely a month old. She opened her eyes wide and spent the best part of an hour looking at the world around her on the day she was born. When we carry her, with her head resting on our shoulders, she tries to find purchase with her feet and tries to climb up! Never mind her spindly legs are too fragile to hold her!

Apart from feeding, she spends more time with her gran, who bathes her, dresses her, changes her nappies etc and so is the recipient of her ‘looks’, gurgles and smiles. I am more like her wet nurse than her mom, at the moment!

Here’s to one month of having you, darling! May you continue to brighten our lives.

So  my son tried to feed his sister yesterday….

Yeah you read that right. It all happened while I tried to have a really quick shower last evening, prior to taking the horror to his Kumon classes. Typically, before I could finish, the baby woke up and screamed blue murder. Mum asked her grandson to rock the rocker to calm the baby down. When a few vigorous shakes of the rocker didn’t do the trick, my boy tried the next best thing. Sat next to the baby, lifted his t-shirt and invited his sister to have at it!

You bet am not going to let him forget it! Yeah am that evil, alright!

Maybe you can guess my top activity of the moment from the title. Go on, take a guess. A quick glance across my recent posts and this seems to be a recurring theme. A fact that seems to have occurred to the jobless bots out there as ‘breast’ seems to have replaced ‘deepa venkat’ and ‘pamela anderson’ as the top reasons people stumble on to this blog. Any day now, I might even get my own troll!

Anyhoo, the feeding saga continues. As with most things we have good days and bad nights. Am getting used to being bleary eyed all day long and keep hoping that the panda eyed look will be declared The look, this autumn.

Whilst I was fretting and fuming about the drama surrounding the whole feeding issue, I got some super advice from a midwife and my health visitor. As they spoke much sense, I have to chronicle it here for posterity - for those mums waging a war with it as well as for my own doped up self.

So here they are - things you did not know about breastfeeding:

• You lactate better at night. Five words I never thought would issue from my fingers - or keyboard, take your pick. But there you go. Apparently you do. Which is why it, even if your little bundle of terror wakes you up for the fifth time in three hours, it makes sense to go with the flow as guess what, the flow will continue to flow. (Can you guess I am sleep deprived?)
• Another advantage of b/feeding at night is you secrete a sleepy hormone that makes it easy (Well, ish!) for you to go back to sleep after the deed is done. Which ain’t possible after mixing up formula, so they tell us. But what is the fun in going off to sleep easy with or without the aid of sleepy hormones only to wake up in thirty minutes, you ask. Good q.
• For all of you hapless mums tormented by Evil Mother-in-laws who nag you about not producing enough milk to feed half the city - worry not. The answer is right in you. Drink copious amounts of fluids as without that, you won’t make enough ‘foremilk’, the watery milk that comes first - this quenches the baby’s thirst and makes them weeing and pooing a’plenty. Joy! Next, eat five smaller meals if you cannot face three square ones. Do not skip breakfast ever! Cos no food for mum = no milk for baby. Capice? Third, and sock this to the outlaws, you need plenty of rest to keep churning out the milk - else all the calories you put in you will burn and there won’t be any fatty milk for the little one. So grab some shut eye, why don’t you?
• If your infant is wailing non-stop, check the top three steps listed above - did you drink enough water? eat loads? didn’t hurry about the place? If the answer to any of the question is no, smack yourself silly and remedy the situ pronto.
• Last but def not the least, repeat this to yourself “this too shall pass”. If the sight of hubby snoring away when you are stuck with the bubba chewing your tits off, then take wise Dipali’s suggestion and jab him with the nappy pin. Or aim a hefty kick at his backside (mentally!) and ask him to burp the baby. Babies can smell your milk (duh!) and keep asking for more even when their tummies are full. Get the dad to burp the baby and kill two birds with one stone.