The Sleep that vanished and the Confidence that was vanquished.

"Do you sleep well?" Almost every friend, relative, acquaintance, random people who struck up conversation, neighbour and colleague who had been pregnant or knew the P of pregnancy asked me. "Yeah. Yeah." I beamed, sounding overtly obvious. Well then, "good", came the reply. Because after the baby, you cannot even think of the S of sleep. And that was the end.

The past week, the little fellow, had contracted a severe cold, with congestion in the lungs.He would not be able to eat, would throw up if force fed and as a result be hungry all the time. He lost his sleep. And me, mine - even the little that I got on other days.

He had to be taken to the doctor. From the given situation, I assessed that the visit to the clinic might involve an injection, and may be a little dose of a nebuliser. May be antibiotics as well. The scientist (husband), always discourages me from making medical analyses. "I'm the doctor in the family" , he says, referring to his doctorate in three dimensional geometry, in his modest attempt to almost tickle the funny bone. But, do as he may," I'm the mother", I say, copying my mom's words. "I know what is right for him." I sound confident. I surprise myself. Definitely more confident than a mother of a hardly 5- month old baby. Wow.

 So we had the following conversation:

Scientist : Shall I take an appointment with Dr.J.V?

Me: No I'll call the homeopathy doctor my Maami was talking about. Homeopathy has no side effects.

(My cheer squad, namely MIL ): Yes, yes, even I gave you homeopathy as a child. (Remember the Woodwards gripe-water advertisement? Or was  it  only in Tamil?)

Scientist (Significantly lesser confidence): What about ayurveda instead?

And his voice trailed off, in humble submission to the majority vote. (Moral: MIL as top member of cheer squad is very helpful)

Precisely two days later, we were having this conversation:

Me: Shall I take an appointment with Dr.J.V?

Scientist: No.No. Give it time.

Me: Do you think I was wrong? The cough would have gone by now, if we gave Chittu antibiotics.

Scientist: It has not gotten worse. That's a good thing.

Me: Right.

Scientist: Right.

Me: How much longer do you think we should wait? This won't become pneumonia, will it? Or Tuberculosis?Primary Complex?

Scientist: No baby. Remember? I'm the doctor in this house.

And so much for my premature confidence!!

All this apart, its the last working day of the week. And Fridays are always welcome. Aren't they? Even for someone who is home, spending most waking hours cuddling a very affable little baby?