Ansh is crying.
It’s not the sort of little sniffles here and there, maybe a few whimpers sprinkled in. No. It’s the loud, red-faced wails and screams coming from the kid’s tiny mouth. Shivaay blinks his eyes open, sighing as he stares at the dark ceiling. It takes a moment, but he manages to scrape up the few bits of strength needed to roll off the bed.
Ansh is still crying.
Shivaay stumbles over to the crib, glancing back at the bed to make sure he hasn’t woken Anika. Except she isn’t there.
Right.
She’d gotten up for an early morning ritual with Gauri and Saumya about which she had told him yesterday night and that he forgot.Which means that Shivaay has to find a way to make his son go to sleep. Which is next to impossible. Anika is always the one to get Ansh quiet. Shivaay is terrible at it.
He sighs and reaches into the cradle, lifting his bawling son into the air. “Shh,” Shivaay whispers. “Shh. You’re so loud, baby. So loud. Why can’t you sleep?”
Ansh continues to scream, tightening his chubby baby hands into fists.
“Ansh… Ansh baby,” Shivaay mutters, resting his son’s head against his shoulder. He strokes the brown tendrils gingerly, waiting for Ansh’s body to stop shaking.
It doesn’t.
“Shh, Ansh,shh. Come on, baby. Shh. I’ve got to go to sleep, bud. And so do you. It’ll be better for both of us if you stop crying. Come on, Ansh. Shh.”
Ansh bawls, his eyes scrunched up and lost under his fat baby cheeks.
Shivaay groans softly and walks to his bed, bouncing his son as he goes. “Shh. Shh. Shh.”
His shhs get more and more desperate.
“I should also have read those books during Anika’s pregnancy which she read, they might have been a help now”Shivaay thought
Ansh’s wails get louder and louder. “Anika. I need you,” Shivaay whispers uselessly. Ansh sniffles in agreement, quickly returning to his loud cries. “Why can’t you just sleep already, baby? Huh? Is it that hard? What is it? Are you hungry?” Shivaay heads to the kitchen with Ansh held tightly against his chest. He might as well try to shove food down the kid. It can’t hurt.
In the end, it turns out that it can hurt, and it does, as Ansh makes it very clear that he isn’t hungry. The screams are even louder now. Shivaay has a headache.
“Okay, okay!” he exclaims, dropping the container of baby food on the table. Ansh isn’t satisfied with this small victory and continues to howl.
Half a bottle of milk (most of it ending up on the floor instead of in Ansh’s mouth), a rejected blankie, two Aspirins, and another half-hearted stab at processed peaches later, Ansh is (surprise) still shrieking and crying his displeasure at the world.
Why can’t handling babies be as simple as cracking a business deal.????
Shivaay is wondering how many Aspirins he can safely take in two hours.
Not enough, is his conclusion.
“Go to sleep, Ansh ,” Shivaay whines hopelessly, closing his eyes and letting himself entertain the thought of sleep.
Ansh looks shocked that someone is stealing whining from him. He lets out an especially high-pitched squeal in protest.
“Please, baby? I don’t know what to do.” Shivaay sits on the bed, offering a pacifier to Ansh , who bats it away pointedly. “Doesn’t Anika sing you a song?” he murmurs, more to himself than to his son. “What is it? Oh. Oh.Damn it. What is it?”
It’s not the traditional “, Itsy Betsy Spider” or one of those cute songs television parents use to sing their television children (who are remarkably more innocent and easier to handle, Shivaay realizes) to sleep. It’s something weird, . Something by Star , maybe? Or is it Moon Uncle ???
Ansh uses the silence to suck in a deep breath, preparing himself for another round of blood-curdling screams. But Shivaay can’t take it anymore, can’t take all the screaming and crying and yelling and tears. Why can’t the kid just go to bed? So he manages to get out a few words in a strangled breath before Ansh goes at it again, mumbling the first gentle-enough song that comes to mind. Lullabies? Not so much. Unless “Go to sleep”is a lullaby.
“I should ask Anika how does she handle Ansh”thought Shivaay.
“Twinkle .. twinkle ” he mutters, in what can barely pass as singing. Ansh releases the breath and opens clear brown doe eyes an exact replica of his mother’s, watching his father curiously.
“Um– Twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder what you are ,” Shivaay sings .
They stare at each other, and Shivaay stops singing for a moment. Ansh opens his mouth to scream as Shivaay pauses, moving his hands and wrinkling his eyebrows as he tries to remember the words and tune.
“No,” Shivaay says quickly, trying to cut Ansh off before he starts crying. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.” Shivaay sings the rhyme with as much sweetness and rhythm as possible
Ansh stares, transfixed, at his father, his tears drying on his cheeks, mouth open in a silent bellow.
“When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, through the night.” Shivaay pauses, gathering a breath and smiling down at his son as his brown eyes become smaller and smaller until they close completely and the loud, red-cheeked baby becomes a quiet, sniffling, sleeping baby.
“I must be getting better at singing.”Shivaay thought
“Hahah Anika even I can make my son sleep ” he thought gleefully
Ansh’s tiny fingers twitch against Shivaay’s chest occasionally. Shivaay smiles down at the soft lump of a human cradled against his shoulder, laughing at the little flickering eyelids, the little wriggling toes, the little strands of brown curls blowing from Shivaay’s breath. He’s silent. Everything is silent.
Shivaay breathes a heavy sigh of relief.
“Babies aren’t that hard. I should do this more often.”Shivaay whispers, brushing a kiss on Ansh’s forehead.