Postcards from the edge

3.01am: Daisy cries out. I am woken from a deep, warm comfortable sleep. I wait, and wait to see if it will go away. It does not.

3.05am: I head downstairs to her room where she is wide awake, but cranky that she is wide awake. She asks for a drink. I comply. She says she wants to come too. I say no, stay in bed and I will bring it back in. I tell her that it is the middle of the night.

3.06am: Out trots Daisy into the kitchen to get said drink. With spot and humpty. She requests Playschool on TV. I say no. It’s the middle of the night we are going back to bed.

3.06am: She asks for Playschool again. And again. And again. I repeat. No. No. No.

3.08am: She starts to crack the shits and have a proper tantrum that she is not watching Playschool and I appear not to understand. Playschool! No. Playschool. No! I start to worry about the neighbours (who in a terrace house are VERY close by).

3.10am: I decide to ignore Daisy and take the chance to go to the bathroom. She follows me in and SCREAMS and throws an tantrum on the floor, writhing around on the tiles like a possessed demon.

3.11am: Rob comes down to try and help. Daisy, upon seeing Rob loses her shit even further and shuts the door to him. We are in the cold bathroom, her screaming, me trying to stay calm and in control and the neighbours? Well certainly cursing us and our child.

3.16am: Daisy decides that I am indeed not going to back down. She requests a story instead. I say “sure” and she instantly calms down. We wipe noses, and she looks at me and says “sorry Mummy” and gives me a cuddle and kiss. We head into her room.

3.17am: We have to turn on the light and read her 3 stories. During the stories she asks me whether the baby can sleep in her bed when it comes. I tell her no, it will be in a cot. She then says she wants a cot too. Crazy conversations about anything and everything pursue until I finally convince her to turn off the light.

3.32am: I tell Daisy that it is night time. She hears 2 planes coming into to land. I think to myself “what the fuck are planes doing landing at this time of the night?” Daisy thinks that it’s now 6am and the curfew is over as she can hear planes coming into land and asks “is it morning Mummy”. I curse the airport and their blatant breach of curfew.

3.47am: Daisy asleep at last. I creep out of her room and upstairs to bed. Am freezing. Rob is sleeping soundly next to me. I hop into and try and get some warmth. We have a brief conversation along the lines of “what the fuck are we going to do about this sleeping” and “at least when the baby comes we will be used to being up in the night. Ha”.

3.49am: Rob rolls over and heads back into a sound, deep, warm sleep. I rollover and ponder that thought of the new baby. I worry about sleeping at night, how Daisy will cope, how the baby will cope, how I won’t be getting any proper sleep for potentially the next 3 years and panic.

4.04am: I start to feel the baby kick. That’s good – but then I think about my 20 week scan on Monday and how they could find something, anything wrong with the babe and how will we cope with that. I think about friends who have lost babies as late as this, and then even later. I think about my friend Jules who lost her son Lachie almost a year ago. I think about when I was growing up one of our family friend’s son drowned when he was 3. I am doom and gloom and panic.

4.17am: I start to get cranky that everyone is asleep except for me when I am the one that has to get up in 2 hours (!) and go to work. I curse and rollover AGAIN

4.21am: I start to analyse our relationship with members of our family and try and work out why things are the way they are. I blame myself. I blame them. I get angry. I get sad. Then I get cranky that I am even thinking of this shit and not going to sleep.

4.29am: Repeating mantra “go to sleep you silly bitch” over and over. Keep opening eyes to check the time on the alarm clock and each time I do I get angrier that I am indeed not sleep.

4.47am: eventually sometime here I *think* I fell asleep.

6.00am: Daisy calls out “Mummy it’s morning! I wait for you!” bright and chirpy as can be. When I go into her room she says “Morning Mummy! I awake now! It’s morning!” so happily and beautifully and full of joy that (almost) all is forgiven. For another night.