I don't know what to write about today. I'm very tired and not feeling very funny but am committed to updating this blog twice-weekly. Perhaps I'll share the highest and lowest points of the last 24 hours.
As predicted, Babe did not sleep well last night. In fact, he woke every twenty minutes or so between midnight and 3.30am, which was much worse than usual, and he was up by half past six this morning, despite our disrupted night. Other Half and I had agreed to be firm with him, and make him go back to sleep in his own bed, but this weighty resolve had not been tested by the three previous nights of sleeping through, so it was last night that I had to be tough. And Babe didn't like it at all, yelling angrily when I insisted repeatedly on putting him back into his cot.
At 2am, Other Half threw back the duvet and stormed around the bed, shouting that Babe was 'traumatic'. For a minute I wondered if he was being sympathetic, and taking his turn at the being tough. Unfortunately it was simply a linguistic error and what he actually meant was that he thought Babe was 'traumatised', and wanted to bring him into bed with us to calm him down. (Yes, 'us' - we are trying to return to sharing a bed but this will not be a go-er if Babe is hell-bent on sharing it with us.) The ensuing argument, in the corridor outside Babe's bedroom, resulted in Other Half storming into the spare room, as I didn't want to undo the hard work of the last couple of hours.
But by 3am my resolve collapsed and Babe was in with me, snuggling against my back and tucking his feet into my pajama bottoms. It took me another half an hour to drop off myself, and I laid in bed, tears welling up behind my eyelids. Angry with Babe, angry with Other Half, angry with myself for not knowing what to do and for being fat. I woke up thinking I would just have to take the day off work, and then realised I couldn't as I had a meeting to attend. That was a low, low point, what with Babe being tired and grumpy still, and an hour and a half left to kill before dropping him at nursery. I don't know how I survived the morning at work, trying but failing to complete simple tasks in logical order.
I am struck by what a creature of habit Babe is. With some obvious exceptions in the sleep department of course. He loves to have his feet massaged while having his morning and evening milk. He starts to take his shoes off while we're waiting for my friends to open their front doors. He likes to wear a hat.
We have come into the habit of snuggling up on the sofa at lunch-time, when I've picked him up after work. I put CBeebies on and close my eyes, while he watches for twenty minutes or so. If I forget to wrap a blanket around us he goes off to get it and pulls it over both of us.
Today, after the traumas of last night, he wanted to be especially close to me. (Other Half helpfully pointed out that this probably means I did traumatise him.) We were leaning against one another, my arm overlapping one of his, and he was sharing my crisps and sandwich. I sat up to reach my drink and he sat up a bit too, and then waited for me before snuggling back down and shuffling so that I rested my arm back in the position it had been in. This isn't an obvious high point of the day, is it? But it made me feel so tickley-fluttery tickety-boo happy. Just being quietly, acceptingly, comfortingly beautifully in-company with my son. Similar in feeling, for me, to lying with the sun on your face on a ferry crossing the oiled-calm surface of the Aegean. Spray in the breeze and a beer on the bench. Rare moments when, for a second or two, your brain stops whirring and the intrinsic beauty of life takes hold of you. Long may such precious moments last.
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