Cribs and Crankiness Volume 2

I think it speaks wonders that when I finally got around to clicking on ‘publish’ yesterday after 8 hours of to-ing and fro-ing to get the post done (Tilly’s strong point is her consistency of interruptions…), the title no longer represented the post.

I had grand plans to describe the fabulous nursery that Tilly now graces up to three times per day (oh joy of joys, the napping is getting there…)

I also intended to talk you through the last few days of unadulterated HELL and extol the virtues of routine and repetition, a lesson I have learnt to my cost. Unfortunately my brain is so very addled that I forgot the second half…

So here goes…

It’s probably fair to acknowledge that the last few days have been partly selfinflicted (read: not saying NO to things) and partly Tilly inflicted. The Boy has had a gruelling series of night shifts and by Sunday I took her out the house to go to supermarket to let him try to get some rest. I fed her thinking I then had a four hour window until the next feed, but she was going through a growth spurt and had the audacity to not tell me... The shortened version involves a crying baby, a frazzled mummy, a pothole and a front left tire.

There is an ominous pfpfppfpfpfp noise as I approach the next roundabout. A pull over into a busstop reveals I’m driving on metal… I manhandle a SCREAMING baby out the car with diaper bag and stagger into the garage (thankfully only a couple minutes away) with both of us in tears. The poor mechanic didn’t know what to make of the scene… Tilly, meanwhile, is frenzied and feeding off my anxiety (I only passed my driving test a month before she was born so this was my first major ‘incident’… not fun.)

By Monday she's addled and out of sorts for most of the day with her finally relenting at 7pm and going to sleep. An emergency meeting is called of a committee I am on so I think I can sneak her out and she'll stay asleep. Will she fig. God love her, she’s all cooey and lovely for THREE HOURS with the other mummies there, then irritable for the whole of Tuesday as she didn't get enough sleep.

By the time the Boy woke up from his last post-nightshift doze yesterday afternoon I was a husk of a broken mummy, snappy, unpleasant and generally dazed by the world. I was sent to bed at 9pm  for 11 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

What the last few days has taught me is that I really need to learn to work around her more - my theory that she'll just sleep if she needs to sleep is COBBLERS. I’m told it’s a sign of intelligence and curiosity… either way, she just gets herself worked up and then won’t sleep and then we're in a vicious cycle. Relenting to her rhythms allows her the space to nap, play, gripe and giggle as required without my manhandling her from one coffee morning to another without a ‘bye your leave’…

Oh well. Live and learn. So far I’m still a mummy and a wife and have not yet sold her to the lowest bidder or been served with divorce papers so I’m doing ok.

I think.