The cover story

There is a bedtime ritual the family has been following religiously for over 5 years now. I have recently come to calling The Seniol, the "Dakkan man". He tucks the family into bed every night.

Before LG came in to our lives, The Seniol did night duty, no not like the diaper duty of his now. He would wake up 2 or 3 times in the night to drink water and then see to it the mosquito mat is on, the windows are closed and that the room is neither too hot nor too cold. And then he would arrange the sheet on me properly tucking me in properly and it would stay that way for what, maybe a maximum of 5 mins. Five years is a long time to do that night after night. Sometimes, I felt like a child and not a grown up to be pampered so much. I could manage the show impeccably well when he was traveling but when it came to the nights, I was horrible at that, sleeping under the cot out of fear, forgetting to put on the mat or close the windows and forget about the sheets on top.

With the arrival of LG in our lives, the privilege has gone to him. The Seniol makes his bed every time when he is at home and it is LG's sleep time. The finesse with which he executes this is remarkable. The rubber mat goes first. On top of it, a big enough cotton cloth so that he doesn't feel too cold. And then a fortress of pillows form a boundary around his sleep area. There is a designated spot for each of the 6 pillows, the round ones at the foot and just above his head with the four flat ones on his side. The two small pillows are laid horizontally to each other. He checks his clothing every time before putting him to bed. And then the fan is regulated. It is funny because after such an elaborate arrangement which in itself takes 5-10 mins, when he puts LG in this inviting comfortable sleep area, he kneels hits the pillows, removes the covers and the area looks a mess in no time. Not amusing any more and feeling bad for The Seniol, I asked him "why do you do this when you know he is just going to disturb the whole setting within seconds? wouldn't it be nice to do this after he goes to sleep?" For which The Seniol replied, "It just makes me happy. So what if he creates a mess. I just want him to feel good when he goes to bed." A nice thought but I don't know if the crawling machine really understands this :) This exercise has sure done one thing - it makes me feel he at times is a much better parent than I.