To sleep or not to Sleep

Ah sleep sweet sleep; there was once a time in my life when I d put my head to my soft pillow and surrender my self to slumber. Deep in the arms of sweet dreams I would be until the golden rays of the sun woke me up. No more, gone are those glorious days since I joined Mommy boot camp 1 on 1. The instructor Major Alina aka Major cranky pants, who is looking to be General cranky pants real soon is drilling us new cadets harder then usual. Now adays or rather now a nights the routine is some what like this. The General gets fed a bottle of milk and is put to sleep Private Cadet Mommy burps the BIG G and gently rocks her to sleep off to la la land and than hardly containing her joy she rushes back to the Mess hall jumping with joy and screaming I am free, free at last when she hears the BIG G menacing call again. This time private Cadet Daddy goes and get to change poopy diapers and put the general back to sleep. Daddy comes to the mess hall jumping with joy and before we can sit down for a quiet evening daddy recalls he has important office work to do in his favorite room. So there goes private cadet mommys big plans for the evening.......

When I had married private cadet Daddy I had not known of his nocturnal life style, ok ok I lie. I knew about it but like all starry eyed romantics I had thought oh i ll change my man once he is mine. I have yet to make a dent in the nightly routine of sleeping at 4 in the morning and waking up at 2 in the afternoon. Much to the chagrin of my mother who had religiously put us to bed at 9 in the evening and woke us up at 8 in the morning, when she calls me at 1 o clock in the afternoon and finds me a sleep she is not at all a proud parent.

Back to our night time adventures so once the general finally fall asleep and private cadet daddy goes of to the thinking machine I console my self that it could be much worse like my brothers nightly routine for instance which goes something like this. Mom starts telling him to get ready for bed at 6 in the evening by 9 she manages to make him go to his room and start changing into his pajamas, where we turns on his radio host voice and gives us a minute by minute account of what he is doing right now, (these next few lines are in gulabi urdu or urdulish)

"main apna pajama paine raha hoon, aur ab mein nay left wali tang andar dal li hai. Ab mein apni microsoft wali shirt paine raha hoon. Yeh mujhay apa nay di thee, meri birthday kab a rahi hai? Ami mujhay meri birthday par kiya milay ga?" Ami says, " Beta ap abhi jo kaam kar rahay hain woh dehan say karain, birthday ki baat baad mein ho gi" "Acha jee, par meri birthday walay din aap mujay kiya dain gi, Ali haider wali cassette dain gi...... and on and on this continues till 12 at night when every one has given up and gone to bed so having no choice my brother also falls asleep.

The Big G of our boot camp however employs a different method however, she likes to wake up in the wee hours of the morning when all the cadets have finally popped off to sleep and are busy enjoying the dreams of la la land. Full of amazing biryani recipes and delicious curries being served at her now very famous restaurant, which has a 2 month waiting list and has regulars the likes of kings and presidents, while she herself is off on book tours and presiding over iron chef. At preciesly this moment the General likes to let out a blood cuddling scream to let all the neighbourhood know that she is ready for a diaper change and another bottle of milk at the right temperature not too hot and not too cold. Once this has been administered we can rest assured that we ll be allowed sleep for a couple of hours before the next drill begins.

However, between you and I; I am deeply incredibly and completely in love with the general so I cannot bring my self to leave mommy boot camp because just watching her sleep and smiling while she does so makes all the sleepless nights in seattle better. Cuddling up to that little heater is better than a sandal wood fire, Love you my little angel sleep tight.