Monday 6 April 2009

Be careful what you wish for........

After a weekend of single-parenting by yours truly, himself arrived home, exhausted I might add, after a weekend of proving his manhood on the water. Immediately crazy pregnant lady (I’ve been possessed, and take no responsibility for my words or actions)) berated him for being absent during crazypixies terrible weekend of teething and sleepless, for not being attentive enough to his seven month pregnant wife, and for his existence in general. He then thanked her for all she was doing and offered to share the night shift. Thus ruining a perfectly good argument and underlining the futility of lying awake fuming…….

So, the plan was, he’d take the first shift and we’d switch at 1 am so we’d both get at least 5 or 6 hours sleep. Crazypixie dutifully fell asleep for seven and I headed to bed armed with chocolate biccies and book. This was going to be great.
Crazypixie woke at 8 and I hid my head under the duvet (shame on me) and himself went in. Now bear in mind that for the last three nights when she’s woken it has been at least two hours before I could coax her back to sleep, and then she’d only sleep for 40 minutes. Enter wonder daddy. Two verses of ‘row, row, row your boat’ and………..silence. So off he goes back downstairs to watch the grand prix.
I lie awake in the deafening silence, unreasonably peeved. Time for the relaxation CD and sleep. But, no. wakey time for the littlespud, and mummy’s bladder is as good a trampoline as anything. Several trips to the loo, and wee bit of bonding time with my baba later and it’s definitely sleep time now. Coincidently, just as the chocolate biscuits are turning out not to be such a good idea at bed time. Up and search for gaviscon………..damn, finished bottle last night. Nothing for it but prop up with pillows, ignore burning sensation in chest and repel thoughts of himself chilling in front of the television.
Sleep…eventually.

Awake again at 1. Himself arrives in and heads towards bed. ‘How was it?’ I ask sympathetically. ‘Fine’. She’d slept through so far. Hmmmmmmmm…

We decide to move her into her cot so we could both sleep in our own bed as opposed to me camping with her on the mattress in her room again. Bad idea. She wakes screaming.
Himself heads off to bed. I head to the nearest phone booth to turn in super human soother and nurse her to sleep.
She dozes off, but is sleeping so lightly that I dare not move even a finger. Re-enter chronic indigestion and bladder bouncing littlespud. Eventually though, sleep.

4:30 insistent little hands pulling up my top, the human soother is called into action again.
5:00 wide awake crazypixie attempts some sort of manual dental surgery on mummy.
5:15 crazypixie attempts to batter down bedroom door (mummy hides under duvet, feigning sleep, in the hope crazypixie may join in).
5:30 crazypixie reads mummy stories, while sitting on her head (mummy still feigning sleep).
5:45 crazypixie decides mummy need new hairdo. Mummy attempts a rendition of ‘row, row, row your boat’, but to no avail.
6:00 time to open all the drawers and empty the contents onto the bedroom floor.
6:15 mummy relents and takes crazypixie down stairs for brekkie and toys.

And last night is the most sleep I’ve got in over a week.

4 comments:

Irish Mammy said...

Hi Jen, I was wondering how old is Crazypixie? I am currently SAHM due to losing my job and honestly working outside the home is considerably easy. Why is that husbands seem to have a calming effect on kids meanwhile we get all the sleeplessness?

I remember when Junior was born, himself would sleep through the night and wonder when did the baby come into the bed. Meanwhile I was up 4 times during the night trying to calm him. Where are the paternal instincts?

Irish Mammy said...

Forgot to add when are you due?

mammydiaries said...

Oh Jen! I totally sympathize!!! No matter how evil the snot queen is with myself, the second daddy's in charge she turns into sweetness and light itself! gagggggghhhhhhh!!!!!

jen said...

Irish Mammy, Crazypixie is 13 months and we're due again 12th June - no hanging around here!
wouldn't change being a SAHM for a minute though - well maybe in the depths of another sleepless night the thought does occur.
Enjoy the time you have at home....