For the past week, The Boy has been sleeping through.
A run of undisturbed nights is not something I'd usually mention, mostly in case I jinx it. Also because it's rubbish to be a parent in the middle of a Bad Phase: what you don't need is to hear that someone else's child is snoring through the wee hours.
However, since the nocturnal peace ended last night, the topic is fair game. And it's rubbish. Tired and disoriented, slow, groggy, frumpy, lumpy and grouchy. The whole Band of Insomniac Dwarves.
The nature of my work at the moment is to scribe away on my own. I'm on a (long-awaited) teaching reprieve this term. I've been desperate for this peace and solitude. It's been so long coming that small publishing tasks have now become epic challenges, requiring me to scale mountainous literature reviews in order to relate any of my ideas and past research projects to current thinking. I can't believe how busy everyone else has been, doing real research while I've been settling into teaching and having babies.
So here I am, with the ultimate luxury of space, privacy and a to-do list consisting of research tasks. And what's occupying my mind? It's the moment last night, two hours into the 20-minute cyclic routine of cry-soothe-leave-the-room, where my patience wore thin and I slammed a kitchen cupboard trying to find a spoon to administer the Calpol that I wasn't totally sure was justified. Uncertainty, uncertainty, oh my Beanie Hat, when will you let me put the Bowler back on?
I didn't know why he was crying.
I wasn't sure whether anything was really wrong.
I didn't know if I was doing the right thing by NOT picking him up.
Then, when that didn't work, I was unsure if I was doing the right thing by PICKING him up.
Was it was right to give him medicine?
Have I made the prospects for tonight worse by the way I handled things last night?
Despite the fact that there's NO POINT TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT, I am still trying to figure it out. The sound of him crying and me slamming the cupboard door is the soundtrack accompanying my solitude. I think I'll sit here and wail until someone comes and rubs my back, hands me my teddy and gives me paracetamol. That should do it.
A run of undisturbed nights is not something I'd usually mention, mostly in case I jinx it. Also because it's rubbish to be a parent in the middle of a Bad Phase: what you don't need is to hear that someone else's child is snoring through the wee hours.
However, since the nocturnal peace ended last night, the topic is fair game. And it's rubbish. Tired and disoriented, slow, groggy, frumpy, lumpy and grouchy. The whole Band of Insomniac Dwarves.
The nature of my work at the moment is to scribe away on my own. I'm on a (long-awaited) teaching reprieve this term. I've been desperate for this peace and solitude. It's been so long coming that small publishing tasks have now become epic challenges, requiring me to scale mountainous literature reviews in order to relate any of my ideas and past research projects to current thinking. I can't believe how busy everyone else has been, doing real research while I've been settling into teaching and having babies.
So here I am, with the ultimate luxury of space, privacy and a to-do list consisting of research tasks. And what's occupying my mind? It's the moment last night, two hours into the 20-minute cyclic routine of cry-soothe-leave-the-room, where my patience wore thin and I slammed a kitchen cupboard trying to find a spoon to administer the Calpol that I wasn't totally sure was justified. Uncertainty, uncertainty, oh my Beanie Hat, when will you let me put the Bowler back on?
I didn't know why he was crying.
I wasn't sure whether anything was really wrong.
I didn't know if I was doing the right thing by NOT picking him up.
Then, when that didn't work, I was unsure if I was doing the right thing by PICKING him up.
Was it was right to give him medicine?
Have I made the prospects for tonight worse by the way I handled things last night?
Despite the fact that there's NO POINT TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT, I am still trying to figure it out. The sound of him crying and me slamming the cupboard door is the soundtrack accompanying my solitude. I think I'll sit here and wail until someone comes and rubs my back, hands me my teddy and gives me paracetamol. That should do it.
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