The sad tale of Tomlinson
Ever since the sad departure of Little Peter the shrew, the girls have been on the watch-out for more half gored animals to rescue and on Monday they adopted Tomlinson, a small bird [named after Louis from, of course, One D]. He was housed in a cardboard box in daughter one's room and fed bread crumbs since he looked not too badly injured, but it's always hard to tell. He was generally perching on people's shoulders and looking perky.
He managed to escape from his box in the night and was found in daughter two's room. Daughter one was highly suspicious that daughter two had kidnapped him in the night, but daughter two vehemently denied such plotting. Indeed, she is very much in with daughter one at the moment and was asked at school to draw the most important thing to her. Daughter one was first up. I was in fourth place, apparently due to the fact that my face has "more details" than her sisters and her dad. I am not taking this as a compliment.
Anyhow, that meant that on Tuesday, in addition to looking after daughter three who has been off sick all week, I had to care for Tomlinson and ensure he was safe from the prowling would-be tigers.
Unfortunately, at some point during the morning Tomlinson became an ex-birdie. I feel the same sense of guilt as I felt when daughter one's Tamagotchi was left in my charge and expired shortly afterwards.
I was speaking to someone in the nursery about the events of Monday night, including Tomlinson's brief sojourn in the family. This included being awoken at around 1am by the looming shadow of a feverish daughter three. Toddler boy - in the cot - woke up around 2am so I got in the cot with him and wedged my head next to the bars. It was not the most comfortable sleep I have had. By around 3am he had woken up again so I took him into the bed. He then proceeded to sleep on top of my chest, on top of my head and then lurched towards daughter three, kicking his father who muttered something about hating children. He does like his sleep.
Anyhow, by around 4am I gave up and took daughter three to her bed and cuddled her up there for about 20 minutes until I heard toddler boy crying. I slithered out of the bed and back to our room. "Hello, mummy. What doin'?" he greeted me in a worryingly alert tone. "What doing, Mummy?" is his first full sentence and he has been repeating it ad infinitum. He then said "Sorry, Mummy" and hunkered down for some sleep, which kind of makes it hard to be cross. Naturally, I then overslept and had to rush daughter one out the door.
The person who I was recounting this to at the nursery said: "Sounds like a night from hell." I was a bit taken aback. I seem to have these nights on a fairly regular basis as one or other of the children come down with something. .Indeed they are so regular that my body actually seems not to notice the lack of sleep until the weekend, when I generally come down with whatever it is that the sick child has had. Lovely.
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I'm sure you know that you have such bad nights because sorting them is not your priority. It was never mine either, though at least my husband moved permanently into daughter 3's room so me and the children had plenty of room and slept fine. This later caused all sorts of other issues, so I don't recommend it. But I met a mother recently with a toddler and 2 others under 6 and hers always sleep all night in their own bed- because she absolutely insists on it. I absolutely insisted that nobody EVER graffitied on books or walls. I'm sure that you have something you also absolutely insist on. But every maternal achievement is always trumped by the mother who fights and wins the night-time battle, so my crayon free walls got me no status at all!!
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I think the problem is that I have so many other short-term priorities that tackling the sleep thing is rarely going to get to the top of the list! I'm also useless at the graffiti thing. The current battle is trying to stop the toddler microwaving lemons.
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