Akshra's babysitter took a day off yesterday so puja took her to the office day care. It was a long convoluted exercise. that left us both, specially Puja completely exhausted.

Everyday its a new challenge. We are currently struggling with feeding her. We are not sure whether her reluctance in feeding is just something she is doing as a part of something new she has learned or whether this is due to some relapse in her terrible viral infection.

Its been a week since we moved today. Akshu has more or less adjusted to the new place but we seem quite clueless. With boxes all over the place and really no place at all to walk it is hard. With the baby not giving us much time to sleep during the night it is harder. We are also desperately trying to sleep-train her so that we can keep some sanity and get some work done during the day but we have not really succeeded so far.

We are still trying to figure out this baby thing. While we get unlimited joy out of playing with the baby, caring for it and just the idea of this "possession" are also in some sort of a denial. We haven't quite made peace with the fact that our lives have change irreversibly forever. There is no such thing as a quite evening or a lazy weekend. No movies and no TV. No uninterrupted anything. When the baby calls we need to be there. We need to help her and we need to always have her as our top priority. We both want to but we are not quite ready for the stress and fatigue it has brought us. We are almost at a breaking point. While physically tired to the bone we are also mentally fatigued to the point where we do strange things and are often not fully aware of our surroundings or of people around us. It would not be completely incorrect to say that we are losing our minds.

What has made this so much more challenging is of course the specter of moving into a new apartment and everything that comes along with it: furniture that does not fit, anxiety of the new space and of course the mammoth packing effort that has been going on for over a month now. We finally move tomorrow.

We are hoping that once we settle down in the new place -- maybe by April things will look a little better. We may have a little more control over our lives.

Akshra's condition has improved over the last two days. She seems much better and has started eating some basic solids such as light cereals. Most of her blisters are gone except the ones she keeps scratching and keeping alive.
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Puja has started her new job finally this week with a hidden promotion that came with the new job but nobody told her about it.

She needs to leave for work around 7.30 every day and that is quite difficult with Akshra's sleeping habits (or lack thereof) and with everything that goes into leaving the home. The babysitter does get in at 7.30 but it is still very hard. Also, I am off this week so I am dropping her and still we barely make it on time. It is going to be harder from next week.
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Unbearably cold today with temperatures hovering around 12 degrees and the real feel that much below zero.

We had a very difficult night with Akshu. She kept waking up every hour or so and was in quite a bit of pain. However, she had been drinking milk a littler better than earlier. We were still pretty clueless and ultimately around 4 am decided to giver her the strong medicine. Her lips were swollen pretty bad, aching pretty bad and bleeding slowly. She struggled a bit after that but eventually fell asleep.

We had a doctor's appointment this morning at 9.30. We also had Ikea delivery at the new apartment within the 8am to 12am window. It is amazing how everything happens at the same time. We asked Shika if she could work from home and she agreed which worked out good. However, I went to the doorman at the Shore and told him to let the Ikea delivery folks put the boxes in.

We headed to the doctor's around 9.15. However, there was a complete traffic jam and we were stuck in traffic for about an hour. Strangely enough the doctor was stuck too and moreover she had a flat and was getting it fixed. She eventually saw us around 10.45. She felt Akshra is healing but slowly and we need to continue pumping medicine into her.

Poor Akshu is living up to the name of this blog. She is a problem child. Her infection became much worse overnight and we had to take her to the doctor this morning. Giant swollen lips with blisters and blisters inside her month and on her face around her lips. Poor dear 5 and a half month old child.

The doctor gave her a bunch of medicines including a "neurological" medicine which freaked the hell out of me -- thankfully we couldn't even find it anywhere and hence could not give to her. Apart from antibiotics and other stuff she continues to get ointment that we put on her lips. The next step is an IV plugged into her tiny little hands tomorrow. I hope it never gets to that but who knows? God bless her, I feel sorry and helpless.

I guess that what life is. It is about possessions -- emotional and material that make you more and more vulnerable and weak. There is joy of possessions, of course, but there is also a price, just as there is for everything.