So firstly folks I do apologise for the delay in posting. As you know we recently made another trip home to the UK to see my family. I had hoped this one might be a little more successful than the last but I think it might have been even worse!! Of course it was wonderful catching up with friends and family as always and the trip certainly started well.
The boys were both good as gold on the flight over and the first weekend was spent celebrating Baby M’s Christening which was really lovely.
We did get some lovely days in – visiting friends, play dates, a trip to the beach, the Sealife centre and Monsters Soft play – but the following weekends were spent working for me and were pretty intense with cover teaching and dance school exams in London. Meanwhile both boys seemed to get hit with a tummy bug and Baby M decided this was a good time to get another tooth which is never fun! Sleep wise Baby M napped pretty well and on schedule if not always for really long and was also good going to bed but throughout the night he was pretty atrocious. I guess with hindsight we can put it down to that big top tooth coming through but once again it was not fun to be dealing with him alone. Especially with LJ waking up from bad dreams and also wanting to come into bed with me, something he hasn’t done for a long time.
But that is something I am once again learning about babies and now big brothers. That they just have a sixth sense about things. They know when your mind is on something else (i.e the big dance exam session you have coming up) and they know when something is going on that requires your attention to be more on the baby than the big bro.
The most apt example of this being when we tried to arrange a repeat of the fantastic naming party we had with the girls before Baby M was born (I had obviously forgotten that LJ stayed in Vienna with his Papa and Baby M was not yet a wonderful disruption on our hearts).
It went something like this……
I don’t get much time to myself. To just be me, rather than a Mother or Wife, so when I get the opportunity to spend time with friends, without children, it is special. Just for a little while it is nice, and important, to just to be Katy instead of Mama or Mrs Atzi.
And I feel very lucky to have a wonderful group of friends who I grew up with in one way or another and who are still my friends 30 years later. We have shared school, pantomimes, dance classes, Brownies, swim lessons, Sunday school, trips abroad, caravan holidays, injuries and illnesses, weddings, house warmings, birthdays and babies and every so often when I am back at my Mum’s we try to get together. Either a meal out or at someone’s house.
This particular nights was one of those get togethers. We had planned a Girls Night In at my Mums with food, drinks (a bit of Prosecco) and some games – silly quizzes and the like.
Baby M and LJ had been no bother going to bed for the last week at my Mums or in fact for the last month or longer at home but of course on the one night that we need them to play ball and go to sleep at their normal time it all goes wrong!
First Baby M had a later than usual afternoon nap, despite being exhausted at his usual time he fought it tooth and nail, eventually falling asleep in the car on the way home. Needless to say this meant he wasn’t quite so sleepy in the evening but he was still ready for bed at 7.15pm so all seemed on track still. Then, out of no-where, he pukes up his entire bottle of milk! All over himself and all over me and my nice outfit ready for the evening. Luckily he still was sleepy enough to go off but by now we are 50 minutes behind schedule.
Next comes LJ. My golden boy. He had welcomed all the girls, played nicely while we chatted and said a lovely goodnight to everyone. Now LJ likes you to lie with him until he falls asleep but normally this is fine because he literally falls asleep within minutes. We have a story, a nice cuddle and he’s gone. He was so tired – he had been rubbing his eyes before going upstairs – but no this night he decided to just lie there WIDE AWAKE!
I tried singing, cuddling, going to the toilet and hoping to come back and find him sleeping, I told him I would just go downstairs if he didn’t sleep soon. He squeezed his eyes so tight in a bid to make himself fall asleep but still he just lay there clutching onto me for dear life. I guess in his mind he believes we stay with him for most of the night when he’s asleep but because there were people downstairs he knew I was going to leave him as soon as he fell asleep.
I could hear everyone chatting and laughing downstairs, ok 5 more minutes, but then I heard them get up the table, plates and cutlery clanging, starting to get annoyed now – I wanted to do a game before we got to the table, another 5 minutes he’s still wide awake and I am getting really angry as I am missing the evening. I tell him I am going down anyway. The water works start. Proper hyper-ventilating crying. My Mum comes up and tells me to just go down but now I am upset and stressed and angry and feel like a terrible Mother, embarrassed to go down and quite frankly by this point my appetite is completely gone.
I do go down in the end as I need to calm down. My Dad comes down and says he’s sleeping already but when my Mum hasn’t reappeared 10 minutes later I know this was just a lie to encourage me to eat!
Back up I go and eventually he falls asleep. I did not hear another peep out of him all night. Grrrrrrrrr!!
Alas, after this trauma the rest of the night was child-free, happy and relaxed. Of course I saw Baby M several times later in the night but the bottle of Prosecco helped me cope with that and now we have another story to share.
The moral of which is don’t plan a night with friends expecting to rely on your usually reliable children. They sense something and always react. Next time I will make sure hubby is there to manage the boys while the girls have fun.
On a positive note it was lovely to see LJ wanting Nana to take him up to bed and read him stories and Baby M dancing away in Grandad’s music room. On a personal note I was very proud of my teachers and pupils in how smooth the exams ran and I got to be judge of a dance contest which showcased some amazing talent plus a successful girly shopping and lunch trip sealed me as a buddy of my best friend’s daughter at last! ;0)
So actually apart from the lack of sleep (well what else is new?!) and the crazy, busy work stuff, on paper, it sounds better than I remember! But next time, just in case, I definitely won’t be organising our visit solely around work. Next trip to Nana’s is going to be for fun, family and friends only! The way it should be.
Sweet Dreams –
Mama Atzi x
