Thursday, November 19, 2009

The morning shift

The twins generally sleep through the night. They do get hungry between 4.30 and 5.30 and usually by then, I've completed at least one sleep cycle and can willingly get up, get milk ready, potter around, go to the bathroom and tend to them. Usually I don't hold conversations with them because I do want to go back to bed and want them to do the same. If they have nightmares or need consolation earlier in the night, Packrat deals with them because earlier in the night, I'm not very conscious and not very useful. And if I have to do the midnight nightmares, my being able to wake up and do the 5 am one is questionable. Packrat is usually still up at midnight so that's his shift. Tag team perfection.

This morning, the routine was more or less the same except I needed to give Evan some panadol since he'd been running a low grade fever since yesterday. And while doing that, Jordan who had found her way into my bed was caterwauling because she couldn't find her beloved pacifier. That really woke Evan up, he's been behaving like the big brother lately and he needed to go and see why his sister was chucking a fit. So, off we went with all four of us on the bed. Because he was more awake than his wailing sister, it took him longer to get back to sleep. That meant it took me a long time to get to sleep too.

First it was "Mommy, massage eye. Eye itchy".

Then it was "Mommy, scratch arm. Got rashes".

Then it was "Mommy, put cream on rashes. Make rashes not itchy"

After that, there was much tossing and turning and scratching.

Just as I was drifting off, his little voice calls out insistently "Mommy, Mommy! Help me!" Evidently, he had swung his legs off the bed in the midst of tossing and turning and found himself standing on the floor without being able to get back onto the bed (our bed's quite high off the ground). When I told him he should try and climb up himself, he plaintively whined "Mommy, Mommy, I want to sleep!"

So, I heave him back onto the bed, all the while, his father and sister are dead to the world. I cuddle him and tell him that I'm tired and need to sleep and so does he. He quietly lies there for a bit and then rolls over and taps my nose and whispers to me again. "Mommy, get scissors"

At that moment, I think I was dreaming that baby Muffin was just born and I wondered why Evan was going to try and cut his cord. I murmur confused, "Why do you need a pair of scissors?"

Evan replies, obviously having something other than the umbilical cord to cut "Mommy get scissors. Help Evan. Evan no scissors. Scissors dangerous." Ok, so warnings still go heeded at 5 in the morning but I repeat "why does Evan need a pair of scissors?"

"Mommy cut Evan's tag. Evan's tag itchy. Scratch Evan." A t-shirt that he's worn for ages and has become too short for him evidently and only now, at 5 am irritates him to the point that he needs it cut off. I know I should just leave him to it but I don't. I roll my whale-like self off the bed and go in search of a pair of scissors and snip off the tag as much as I can, without switching on the light.

And the problem with using a pair of scissors is that I have to once again get up to put it away so that if he or Baby J wake up before we do, they don't end up hurting themselves.

At that point, I tell him firmly to go to sleep. And he does. But not before his little voice calls out again in the dark. "Mommy, Mommy"

Tired, I reply, "Yes?"

"Mommy, Mommy, Thank you! I love you!"

That's when I melt into a sleepy, gooey puddle, cuddle my little boy and drift off to sleep an hour after waking up to make him and his sister milk.



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1 comments:

  1. Super awww.

    It makes waking up/finding the scissors and everything else fades into the background.

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