Sleeping like a baby......

A few weeks back, a friend, a fellow aficionado of horror movies, tried to persuade me to borrow a DVD for "Paranormal Activity" and watch it alone at night, while Vj was out of town. Till some months back, I would have jumped at the thought of doing this; given that this was my idea of the perfect way to generate adrenalin; too bad it never led to weight loss though!

But this time around, it struck me that the thought of watching Paranormal Activity all alone in the dark, didn't cause even the slightest of tremors in my heart nor did it give rise to even the ghost of a goose bump. Wonder why??? Because there is a whole new kind of nocturnal activity that strikes terror deep into my soul these days or should I say nights; and it emanates from the 2 little cribs in my bed room! 

The creatures of the dark, who appear at night now are no longer the killer pumpkins or blood sucking witches from C grade horror movies, but my 2 little nocturnal devils - who drop their angelic guise at night and assume their Mr Hyde avatar - Count Vicula and Count Vedula!! They are more merciless and ruthless than any ghost, ghoul or poltergeist I have seen on TV and their howls can send any proud banshee to a therapist's chambers, seeking therapy for shattered self esteem! Every shuffle they make, fills me with dread & every eardrum shattering howl they emit, frightens me more than the girl from the Ring managed to!! 

My little twin terrors are indisputably blessed with sixth sense - and can sense the minute I come to bed or better still, each time I go to the washroom to freshen up for bed. Their timing is impeccable; most of the yells come exactly when I am in the shower or brushing my teeth or doing other stuff toilets are meant for! Thanks to them, my bladder control, which was anyways superb to begin with, can now win an award or two!!! 

Nevertheless, in some ways, the little Vs tend to be really considerate! Its a rare night, when both wake up to howl at the same time. After I have spent good part of an hour rocking one howling baby to bed and start to ease into mine, the second one decides its time to make an entrance! Then just as he goes back to his crib, the first wakes up again... and so it continues.... Infact our routine can teach a lesson or two in efficiency to any team training for the Olympics relay race!

Here is a sneak peek into how my nights pan out - 

My little V2, aka Count Vicula, also known as His Royal Fussiness, hates his baby rocking chair and hates to see anybody other than his chief slave - Moi - when he wakes up. I believe that is because he realises he has trained me sufficiently in his nocturnal routine and thinks I do such a great job, rocking and singing to him, he has no use for anyone else! Count Vicula is also on a spree every night - to collect frequent awakening points; which basically translates into the following routine - each time I put him back in his crib, he wakes up promptly within five minutes and starts howling all over again! So my stint with him is spent doing 2 activities - one, carrying him back and forth from one room to another, and second, rocking him in the rocking chair. 

Rocking & singing in my rocking chair - sounds so beautiful doesn't it??? Well let me tell you that its not as romantic as it sounds! For one, rocking for hours makes the calf muscles feel cramped and look over-developed. Moreover after an hour of rocking, you start losing sensation in your butt, even if it is more than well protected with layers of adipose like mine! And then try singing at 3 am when even your larynx cries out for sleep! All you get then is a croak! And you feel madly jealous of Brother John because you keep asking him the same question over and over again "Are you sleeping, brother John?"!

So here I am an hour or so into rocking and trying to croak the ode to Brother John and his sleep, when I feel a sharp pain in my shoulder! Turns out, Count Vicula has decided to take his brand new teeth on a test run; reminding me of the program I saw on Discovery where a shark takes a bite out of a surfer just out of sheer curiosity!! My sharp yell of protest is greeted with a genuine scream of delight! And then the game hots up - a few more bites are attempted, I squeal a bit louder, he thinks the nocturnal games are far more fun than the ones he gets to play during the day!!

Count Vedula (V1 by day), emerges far less often. But that just makes him far more dangerous as his visits are far longer and more testing! And being the force of nature that he is, he doesn't wake with a screech or a whine but a deafening roar that can even wake the people who live above and below us! So I rush to take him out of the room before his yells can wake up his sleeping brother and perch myself again on the rocking chair. And once again, I start my musical conversation with brother John. Count Vedula, in the meantime, the thinker that he is, spends the entire time, staring at the air conditioner, and very thoughtfully goes "Hmmm......." every 5 minutes. Or if he is in a more playful mood, he smiles and utters "Beep"!!! (the only word he can say - learnt after listening to the voice mail on his daddy's phone asking us to leave a message after the Beep!) after every song I have croaked out!!

And just when you think my cup runneth over, think again!!! Did I mention that during all this, there is also a 3rd V, the dad, belting out back seat parenting lessons as I go in a game of musical cribs, from one baby to the other!! "Feed him milk", "pick him up", "give him water", "give him colic", "go, go, go"!!! Sometimes he makes me seriously wonder if snapping under pressure due to non stop backseat parenting can be used a as a valid defence in trials, just like PMS!!! 

Thus, at the end of each night, the one feeling more Undead than the Transylvanian Count himself is ME! So, any reason why I should fear him or his minions???? Now the only thing that scares me is the phrase "sleeping like a baby"!!!! 

P.S 

Went to bed this morning at 5 in the am! My little Vicula seemed to have decided that he will take a day off, presumably to be back to his nocturnal trysts with a bang!. But before I could say Hallelujah, I realised that the boys must have reached some sort of a deal where Veduboy magnanimously offered to cover his own shift and fill in for his brother as well, waking up every 15 minutes last night!!!! 

But last night, he decided to entertain me for a change, so every song I croaked out was accompanied by Vedant's newly picked up, near perfect imitation of a bullfrog!! And as for me, his one toothed smile at his own antics made me forget every single thing I learnt from watching every Super nanny episode available on youtube and I broke into peals of laughter. That was all the encouragement needed for the entertainer in him to break free. So he did a few more impersonations and we carried on giggling till daybreak arrived and it was time for Count Vedula to be back in his crib and for me to drag my sleep deprived body to mine!