Snooze Button Defect

Kids just don't get the concept of snoozing. It's 'awake' or 'asleep' - no warm, fuzzy, lazy lazing in bed, eyes closed, thoughts open, aware the day has begun but not quite ready to face it.

That bastion of parental fantasy, that adult pleasure that is free and legal, that loss so keenly felt when it is violently ripped asunder by curious little people.

Daisy is a fabulous sleeper. I am praying to all my non-religious icons that this baby who will shatter my dreams and well as my snoozes in 5 weeks will take after her biggest sister. Daisy falls asleep mid-sentence, sleeps like the dead for 12 hours, then wakes up as brilliantly as a light being switched on and jumps out of bed, happy never-ending sunshine and bouncing for the next 12 hours. There is nothing inbetween.

Poppy on the other hand has many wonderful qualities. Sleeping is not one of them. Sleeping late does not register at all on her scale of important things in life. So it is at 6.30 (A - OMG - M), I am woken by the gentle stroking of my arm and the soft words ,"mummy, I need to do a wee wee." After I blindly put her on the loo, I urge her back to bed to no avail. In she creeps with me, and I snuggle down, her encased in my arms, and hope, just this once, she'll fall back to sleep.

But two minutes elapse (during which time she has kicked me several times, and my baby kicks her back so I feel like a football pitch) and turns to me and whispers,

"But mummy, is it morning?" On these summer dawns, it is hard to lie.

"Yes, lovely, but we're going to snooze for a bit. It's a bit early."

More football.

"But mummy, it IS morning?"

"yes...."

"So can I have a story?"

Twenty minutes later we are joined by her sister, all sunshine and bouncing, and we face the day whether I like it or not.

I know teenagers have a reputation for never getting out of bed. Can someone please tell me I don't have to wait another 9 years??? When does the Snooze Button start functioning? In the meantime, I suppose cuddles and stories aren't a bad way to start the day.

Fitting it all in.....

Despite only seven (yes!!!!!! only seven!!!!) weeks to go until I can lift this enormous boulder that is my stomach off my spine, and cradle a light little lump of loveliness in my arms instead.. this title does not actually refer to the fact that my lungs and stomach are now so squashed I can only breath standing up, and only eat one marshmallow size of food before my aesophagous fires up in anger and burns a hole in my chest while belching loudly in riotous outrage.

No - 'fitting it all in' now refers to my near frantic frenzy of to-do-lists I have to tick off before I get too fat to waddle and then too tired to bother.

I have emerged from my sloth-like caterpillar stage, through some imaginary hormone happy chrysalis, into some energetic, creatively juicy, albeit rather heavy and un-graceful butterfly, fluttering and muttering to myself as I prepare our household for the onslaught of a new baby. How could something so small, require so much preparation? Thinking, list-making, knitting, shopping, cooking, decorating, did I mention shoppng?, preparing bedrooms, making childcare plans.... never mind preparing our two girls for their little steps into the big worlds of school and montessori.

Between the sickness and tiredness of early and mid pregnancy I had to abandon many of my regular activities and focus on the essential.... like feeding my children. But now - resplendent in bulbous blooming bountiful energy - I have finished my novel. It is done. It is printed and I even posted it to an editor for some feedback. It may of course spend the next thirty years in my desk drawer, but it is done. But that's not all! I've made the curtains for the baby room, bought the beds for the girls, moved the cot into place, bought the buggy, and I've even made the To do list for Daisy's birthday party in October and bought her presents (yes I know, but it's only 3 weeks after the birth so I need to have it done!). I still have a list that hangs down to my feet (though thankfully I can see neither the end of the list or my feet). I have finished articles for Christmas deadlines, and bought 20 pie dishes for my culinary challenge of filling the freezer with nutritious food so nobody starves in the first few weeks. Daisy's school uniform is bought (though not labelled - add to list!), I've been reading Poppy books on starting Montessori, I have even - yes, may I stand proud and non-apologetic - bought some Christmas presents. And I've even returned to my blogging world and caught up with some old friends..... if you are still with me - I've missed reading your stories and am loving catching up with your hurly burly lives once more.
It feels good to be alive again, and now as I tick, tick, tick my lists, I count the days until the sleep sloth of sweet surrender mists over me again as the sweet smell of my new baby's head renders all my lists meaningless.
But for now, I am leading the charge on those lists like a demented dragon. No wonder then Daisy looked confused the other day when hubby told her she couldn't have something because he was the boss and said so. She looked at him, genuinely baffled, before replying, " But daddy, that's not true. Mummy is the boss."
I'm back!