Wakey wakey, rise and whine!

So my kids are in training for the Babylympics. Their strongest event is the Wakey Mummy Relay. They pass the Wakey Wakey baton back and forth all night sometimes. They have perfected the smoothest of change-overs. Goodness, I'm so proud of them. The Terrible Toddler is also in training for the Whine-athon, at times she manages to keep it up all day - and that takes some skill.

Honestly, I think they just worry about leaving me on my own at night and want to keep me company. Bless. I've always been anti co-sleeping but have to admit that recently I've just plopped the Terrible Toddler in bed with me to shut her up and get some sleep before the Little Man revs up. Of course, I say 'get some sleep', what I really mean is get whacked on the head with Flopsy Bunny and kicked in the guts for an hour while I pretend to be asleep. She eventually gets bored of pinging my ears and dozes off, managing to take up far more room than a person only 89cm tall ought to be able to take up. Then the snoring begins.

And there I was just the other day actually defending co-sleeping.
'Nobody,' I proclaimed in my best Mother Nature voice 'would tell a lioness to not sleep curled up with her cubs because they need to learn to fall asleep independently. What nonsense.'

Sod that. Sod Mother Nature too.

If I needed any further evidence against co-sleeping, a couple of nights ago, just as the Terrible Toddler was falling asleep she wriggled and... I can barely admit it... she fell right out of my bed. Woke up hollering, Little Man woke up wailing, the neighbours were dialling 999, the whole house was pandemonium for the longest 2 minutes in history of motherhood.
The only good thing was that it threw the Wakey Mummy Relay right out of sync and they both went on to sleep for hours.

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I wanted a bicycle

Just to clarify, this post has nothing to do with cycling. In fact, I'm so sick of playing second fiddle to a load of Bromptons, Pendletons and pelotons (G pedals in his sleep*) that I really don't care for bicycles at all any more. No, the title of this post refers to something my neighbour recently said to me. It was 8.30am, I'm outside trying to wrestle the Terrible Toddler into the pushchair. She's howling and doing that crazy toddler contortionist move where they somehow seem to dislocate all their joints, making it impossible to pick them up. Little Man's stuffed into the Baby Bjorn and crying his strangled little newborn mew. I'm looking fairly tragic with my pyjamas peeping out from under my tracksuit and the haunted look of someone who's slowly realising that they're not going to sleep again until the kids are at university. Tina, my neighbour, totters out to water her plants on our shared balcony.

'Good morning!' I shout over the general din as I finally manage to secure Houdini Junior into the buggy.
'Morning, off for a walk?'
'No, we've got to be at nursery by 9' I reply (we have this exact same exchange every morning, I think she's a bit dotty). 'Sorry about all the noise, I'm too knackered to care to be honest.'
'Well dearie, [this is a VERY loose translation from Italian, btw] you wanted a bicycle - time to start pedaling!'

Well, at 12.30am last night (and again at 3.40am, 5am and 6.20am)I decided that I'd like to get off this bicycle now please.

Only I can't. Ever.




ps: I love them really, I'd just like to love them from a distance every now and again.

* he's organising this: www.bicyclefilmfestival.com/milano and this: www.bicyclefilmfestival.com/firenze as well as running this: www.ecopony.it and being involved in this: www.cyclingnews.com/news/florence-to-host-2013-road-world-championships.

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