A quick one... or not. At all, that is.

So, my mum has been to stay for a few days. Lovely to have some company and fantastic to have an extra pair of hands to help me through the day. Took Babe swimming this morning which was wonderful, despite the fact that he nearly froze and is constipated (see below) and therefore reluctant to embrace the full potential of his physicality. Incidentally, I dread to think what the temperature of the baby pool feels like in winter.

It's also been great to have someone to help with Babe when he wakes in the morning. I had a particularly bad night last night. New Babe is now 11 weeks old, and in the last week I've been getting him down by 8.30pm - 9.oopm. He has, on a couple of occasions, woken just once in the night to feed, but he's equally able to wake every three hours, which he did last night, starting at eleven - about an hour after I went to bed. For those of you who don't know, it is agony to be roused from little sleep from you are already exhausted.

Last night Babe woke about four times as well, and at pretty much equidistant intervals between new Babe waking: once for the potty - great (he's now slept without a nappy for three nights and been dry every night. I wonder if this is beginner's luck as he's just spent two entire days trying to poo and it has marred everything we've tried to do as he hasn't wanted to get off the potty); once for an apple he'd been dreaming about, which I had to pretend to try and find behind the bed, and twice because his head had come out from underneath the pillow (these days he can only sleep with it on his face. He's his mother's son all right - I'm a terrible sleeper. It took me twenty years to wean myself off the ear plugs I started wearing during my A levels. Not the same pair, of course, and I don't mean I started wearing them during the exams).

To cut a long story short, I woke up knackered. And because Granny was staying, Daddy was in Mummy's bed. So for once he was reminded of just how crap my nights are. But somehow I still ended up getting up to Babe as well, as I'm the one he calls out for and it is easier to go than withstand the shrieks he produces if his dad does, as I don't want new Babe woken if I can help it.

Having fed at 5am, got up to Babe at 6 and half 6, I was pleased when OH got up with him at 6.40. I say pleased, but I elbowed him in the ribs so hard he knew it wasn't up for discussion. At 7.15 I heard my mum get up, glad that I could stay horizontal while OH got ready to go to work. ASTOUNDED when, at 7.20, OH bounced up the stairs, into my (I don't say 'our' any more) room, stripped off, and jumped back into bed. He needed to leave for work in fifteen minutes.

'What the F are you doing?' I hissed, hearing new Babe stir in his cot and knowing he would wake soon. 'Don't you realise I need every last minute of rest I can get?'
'I thought we could spend five minutes being close together,' he replied.
New Babe started to cry.
'Close together?' I yelled. 'CLOSE together? Get out!', I continued, rolling out of bed and staggering over to the cot. 'If I didn't want to shag first thing before we had kids, what on earth makes you think I want to now?'

He didn't answer. He just looked, forlorn, at the monitor hanging on the wall next to me. The other end of which was on the sofa next to Granny and Babe. I groaned and put radio 4 on, so that I could be further depressed by the weather report and the 8am headlines. OH put on his orange casual trousers (yes, orange - bought at an East European street market and apparently very comfortable, but give him a matching sweatshirt and a broom and he'd pass for a street cleaner), I presume as a distraction. And walked downstairs very slowly.