Its almost been a month since I wrote. A lot has happened since then. I went out on a business trip to Olympia, Washington on a private Gulfstream jet which was totally cool but I stayed away from Akshu for full 5 days which was mildly hard. Unfortunately I did not get as much sleep as much I thought with the time difference and all the work.
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Puja celebrated her birthday and we celebrated our 7th marriage anniversary -- both first with the child in our lives -- which certainly made it a bit of an issue when it came to making plans.

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Then of course there is Akshu. With each passing day the girld simply gets naughtier and naughtier. It is a miracle how they learn these manipulative tactics. She has now learned to cry for attention and as soon as we put her down she begins to cry. I am trying to ignore her as long as I know she is just throwing a tantrum. Puja cannot do that. She takes the child's cries too personally ("Am I a good mother?").
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We also purchased a crib for her finally. In fact, that's what we did on our anniversary. We went out collecting the crib that we had selected the previous weekend. We assembled it the next day and sure as hell some bolts were missing and the structure is a bit unstable. We need to get to a hardware store and search like nuts for bolts.

Akshu is however not happy about this arrangement. We feel she is a little bit insecure about sleeping in a bigger bed all alone. However, we also feel that she is just learning to be insecure in a day care where children must cry to get attention from the baby sitters.

Its been over a week now. Puja has been going to work and takes Akshu along with her to Goldman's day care. Over the last 5-6 days we've practically had no sleep and we are s exhausted that we've no idea how we are even surviving. We are tired, broken and hopeless. Our bodies are beginning to give up. All of this mostly because Akshu refuses to sleep properly during the night and hence we just barely manage an hour here and two hours there. Puja, actually generally gets much less sleep than I do. She is much too aware of Akshra's movements and noises to sleeps much less. Add to that the office work and all the chores around the house and you have a very difficult difficult situation.
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Puja is back from the office around 6.00 with the baby. She feeds the baby some fruit or milk. I come home around 7.00 pm and then we give her a bath. Akshra loves the bath but gets quite hungry and cranky by the time we are done dressing her up. She feeds again after that and plays a little on her own that gives us some time to grab a bite.
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Between the hours or 9.00 and 9.30 I try to put her to sleep. I rock her and sing lullabies until after a very long time that she is finally asleep. It is usually a very fickle sleep -- very easily broken so we have to be very careful to keep the lights dimmed and not make any big noises. Eventually she is asleep and I put her in her bassinet.
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For the next hour or so we spend the time doing chores around the house. Puja has her usual bottles to clean and bunch of preparation for the next day -- from diapers and dresses to take to pump attachments to clean and pack. I try to pay the bills, complete any office work or any photo work for the day and set out for the next day.

We go to bend around 10.30. Its now that the nightmare begins.
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Akshu is very scratchy and wakes up frequently. Sometimes she is violently scratching her head or violently throwing her legs in the bassinet that is becoming a bit small for her. She twists and turns and grunts and makes vicious noises. This wakes Puja up immediately and me eventually. This generally starts happening around 11.30 when we had just begun to get a wink. Puja tries to feed her and generally applies cream on her scalp and feet and puts her back to sleep. She would wake up again around 2.30 and we change her and I feed her a bottle. When it comes to taking the bottle she suddenly realizes that she needs to sleep. Feeding her is becoming difficult. She generally falls asleep midway. After struggling for a bit we put her back to sleep and she seems to go back to sleep soundly. However, soon she is thrashing and itching and semi-awake again and so are we -- not that we had fallen asleep in the first place. She does manage to get some good sleep after 4.00 am and so do we but before we realize it is 6.00 am and time for us to start the vicious cycle again. We both kick around a bit and get out of the bed around 6.15.
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We wake up around 6.15 and start the day with getting ready and preparing our respective beverages. Akshu wakes up around 7.00. We change her and give her something solid. I go down the garage around 8.00 and get the car. I come up and put her in the car seat on the stroller and we both along with Akshra head down around 8.20. By 8.30 Puja is on her way.
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Puja feeds her twice at the day care and the ladies at the day care in Goldman generally do a pretty good job and Akshra is quite happy to be there. However, the whole idea of taking an infant to work every day and bringing her back is quite daunting on Puja.
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So this is how we are spending our days these days. We are not sure what to do but we feel like something needs to happen or we will simply collapse. Moreover, they tell us this is the best sleep we are going to get. I don't even know how to react to that.

Puja went back to work today. We thought we had a pretty good plan for the morning and we almost executed it -- maybe just about 15 minutes late. Thanks to Akshra, or rather no thanks to her. She has consistently refused sleep lately. The infant literally stays awake for over 14 hours a day. She should ideally be sleeping about 15-16 hours. However, nothing ideal works for the kids. They are all different and your best laid plans our often put to rest at their feet.

In any case, we heltered and skeltered to get Puja and baby out headed for the office at 8.30 am today. Puja is keeping the baby at her employer's day care for the month of January. It is actually not as good as it sounds. This requires her to carry a ton of stuff along with the baby to her work and having to leave promptly at 5.00 pm. She will also try to meet and feed her at lunch time.
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So, our barely four-month old child is with strangers today. This is where we can see it all start: the alienation, the sense of one's own individual identity, the sense that parents are facilitators at best.