Wake me up before you ..... zzzzzzzzzzzz

For those too young to get the reference

Sleep. Who can honestly say they get enough of it ?

I know when I was a callow youth it was a competition to live on the least sleep. This was in the days when the PM apparently ruled on only 4 hours. This explains why she was such a callous dictator. It wasn't actually government policy it was that she'd been sleep deprived for so many years having had twin babies that she never slept a full night again and was permanently cranky. See Meryl Streep didn't pick up on that little character point did she ? Oscar back please. Thank you.

Anyway, I digress, I know shocker. I survived on very little sleep at Uni partly because I didn't want to miss anything. I'd stay until the end of a party or be with the last to leave the bar and work into the small hours then wake up early to go for a swim or to get books to the library. It explains why I regularly nodded off on a Monday morning during Trevor's 4 hour history lecture - to be fair it was about the crusades - I'm yawning thinking about it even now. Since then I can't sit in a lecture or speech without the heavy lidded spectre of narcolepsy hanging over me. Essentially I've survived on little sleep most of my life and taken a perverse pride in the achievement.

Until I had a baby that is.

Now competitive sleeplessness is a thing amongst parents. Not in the same, "Oh man I was so smashed did you see that last encore the Pixies did after midnight ? What, you left ? It was amaaaazing..." etc. way. No. It's the one topic that causes so much consternation in parenting circles as once sane adults try to outdo each other in the, "I haven't slept in .. days... weeks... months" stakes. I just can't partake in that nonsense.

Maybe I was especially good in my last life or something. I didn't have that. Our boy has always been a great little sleeper. He was two weeks over his due date as he wasn't in a rush to be born - chilled out as he was in there. Then as soon as he was born he promptly had a pooh on the midwives and went to sleep. I had to wake him up to feed him and took photos while he was awake.

This is how most people saw our boy

There are friends who never saw him awake for the first 6 months of his life. When I went to visit my lovely NCT teacher Wendy the boy nodded off in the pram on the way to the bus stop and stayed asleep all the way there and while I enjoyed two cups of tea, a homemade cupcake and a sit down. No one knew what colour his eyes were for months and they never heard him cry. Of course as soon as the wheels of his buggy touched the front steps of our house he woke up, but he had a feed and pretty much nodded off again. It was like living with a student.

During the night we co-slept so he took up the entire bed and I didn't really sleep much as we discovered early on that he slept on his front and as we're all told that is a no-no I would lie there listening to him breathe. We worked out he was being a cat and as his head was to the side he was fine. Of course poor Hubbie was back at work two weeks after the boy was born so he was the one who needed sleep. At times I'd send him to the spare room so he'd get some rest before going to work. He didn't want to leave us though.

In fact during the 2010 baseball season I'd breastfeed the baby then Hubbie would take him downstairs to watch the baseball on TV so I could sleep. I told you I must have accumulated some good karma that's been paid back in this life to get so lucky. The boy was clearly also a good luck charm as they watched the SF Giants romp to their first World Series victory in over 50 years.

With the exception of the colic months - that period of time when we took it in turns to rock the baby and soothe him while he screeched in pain - we've had it pretty good really. Which is why I'm a bit surprised at the turn it's taken in recent months where I wake up completely exhausted. Our boy goes to bed at a sensible time and sleeps right through until at least 6am which is later than Hubbie gets up to go to work. I, however, am welded to my pillow feeling like I've got a hangover. This isn't helped by a toddler running in shouting, "Mummy, I want to get dressed. Shall we brush our teeth ?" and so on.

I realise it's hardly the middle of the night or anything, and we're so fortunate to have a child who sleeps as well as he does. I'm just hoping that it's going to rub off on me too. I'd love to wake up with that level of enthusiasm first thing.

For now I'm going to take my cue from the cat and nap during the day to make up for it.

Night night.

Chilling with my cat

Love, love, love…

I have been a bit quieter than usual on the blogging front for a few days. Partly this is due to my new job and an acute awareness that people get fired for making remarks about their places of work online. Also the improved weather has meant we've been outside a lot more and as usual I overdid it on my first foray into the garden this year which left me doubled over in pain on Sunday evening.

So two days into commuting I've managed to finish a book that I have only managed to read halfway through for the last 4 months. Almost makes up for the crush on the tram going home, but not quite. In addition my boy has developed a whole new night-time wail that is high pitched, irritating and is only soothed by 'Cuddle Mummy.'

Then today I read two blog posts that inspired me to write this post.

Firstly this one by a mother bereft at her daughter returning to university. She talks about the cycle of life with parents where as babies we love and depend on them, then as teenagers we grow tired of them, then as adults we grow into loving them again. It reminded me that in my first year at university I spoke to my Mother every day - mundane stuff like what I'd eaten - then it was every few days then eventually it was when I remembered. Going home meant a return to the routine of my family and the food that I knew and loved. It also meant being transported back to feeling like a child.

And this brings me to the second blog I read today. This one by Zoe Williams about a recent news story claiming that a child will be able to cope with being disciplined so long as they are reassured that their parents love them. I'm not going to approach this from the angle of whether hitting is ok or not. My parents did not hit as a rule. Instead they used a combination of anger, manipulation and inducing guilt to make their point. I was spoken to as if I was an adult in arguments, but treated like a child when they wanted compliance with their rules. As far as they were concerned parenting was not about consensus, but obedience. As a result I am determined not to do the same to my son.

There isn't a manual for how to raise a child or how to manage our own parents. I only see my folks now in order that they can spend time with my son. I'm not ungrateful to them as they raised me to know how hard it was for them and to appreciate that they worked so we could have things. It is a relationship based on their demands for respect 'just because.' Culturally that was not unusual, but it was tedious having to explain to friends that I couldn't do the normal things they did because my parents believed that anyone outside the family was a bad influence.

The greatest trick my parents ever pulled was convincing everyone - me included - that they were the smiling characters that everyone else saw. So long as they are nice to my son I won't have reason to disabuse him of this myth either. I know they love him and that it makes them happy to see him. If I need to be there too so be it.

I don't know if being hit by your parents is bearable if you feel loved. I do know that not feeling loved by your parents is pretty crappy.

For me loving my son is like breathing - it is not optional.

My secret diary… aged 19 1/2

During my January sorting binge I was going through some under bed boxes and bags. This is why we used to have divans - at least you can't see stuff when it's in drawers under your bed. All I need is a horse called Hercules and the comparison with Steptoe's yard under my bed will be complete. I haven't even started on the paperwork in the spare room - which is the task I keep putting off hence it still needs doing 15 months after we moved into this house.

The reason it takes so long to do any sorting  is that I am:

a) a compulsive hoarder. I mean total rubbish stuff like the place names from weddings we've been to, the ribbons from Christmas crackers and even the crappy gifts you get inside crackers. I see you shaking your head there and before you tut as well, the reason is because I have a lovely advent calendar for both son and Hubbie with pockets so those little silly gifts are just the right size to fill them with.

b) very easily distracted - one minute I'm sorting papers then I'm reading a diary from 24 years ago (more of which later), then I'm wondering what happened to the people I knew and googling them to see what they're doing now. Then I spot that someone has looked at my LinkedIn page from a company I applied to work for and I realise that my profile needs to be updated and so it goes on.

c) obsessive compulsive, so tidying a shelf becomes cleaning it then tightening the screw that holds it together and relocating the whole until to another wall so I can have a bit more space. Then I find the floor underneath needs vacuuming and so it all begins again...

What with all this nonsense and finding an old diary I wasn't destined to get anywhere with the clearout plans so I just settled down to read what my 19-20 year old self had written. Surprisingly I couldn't remember the details despite remembering almost everyone mentioned - apart from Bella, sorry whoever you are I have no clue who you were in my life back then. I do remember being completely infatuated with a particular guy, but not how it panned out. In my head it was terribly tragic and he rejected me for not putting out (I wasn't that sort of girl) whereas actually it sounds like we had a very sweet courtship dance which ultimately came to nowt.

Then there was the chap who was a complete tool and in my memory he takes up no space at all, but he covers a fair few pages in wasted calls and pining. He was also more callous than I realised. When I saw him years later and I was in jogging bottoms and wearing glasses at the petrol station (I know - sexy right ?) I was civil, but didn't smack his stupid face with the petrol hose as I clearly should have done from reading what he did.

It's amazing how much time I devoted to documenting my non-existent love life. I was crippled by my hormonal desires being tempered by my massive guilt as I knew my parents would be apoplectic if I had a boyfriend. I didn't dare do anything beyond be friends with men / boys so I developed some wonderful friendships, foregoing the possibility of it becoming anything more as it would cause friction at home. As a result the pages are filled with pessimism and drama that belie my belated adolescence.

The best thing about finding that book, though, was that I can see how much I've learned and how far I've come since then. If I'd tidied up and thrown that book out I'd have no idea who I was back then. Instead I am feeling kindly toward that young woman and am optimistic for her as I know she meets and marries a fabulous man, goes on to have a gorgeous little boy and has great friends including some of the wonderful men she met back then.

If I met her now I'd also tell her to calm down, be nicer to herself and to reconsider that final year decision to wear glasses in order to improve her grades. It was a dead loss and the photos aren't flattering.

Now, back to the sorting out...