Being a parent

More than just a mother has written a beautiful post about what it means to be a parent. She has described the joy of being a parent perfectly. But there is an alternate version to her morning love story...

Thanks to More than for the inspiration (you might want to read her version first).

My version

Thud. Thud thud thud thud thud. Small penguin-like footsteps make their way ever closer. Then a tentative creek of a floorboard as our three year old son waits at the entrance to our bedroom. Heavy breathing breaks the silence. He stands there, perfectly still. Reaching some conclusion in his mind, he decides to venture into the darkness where I lie, edged out of sleep into a half awake state of alertness.

He fumbles with his tiny nightlight that he carries in his hands, crammed with two teddies, a stuffed monkey and its partner in crime, a blue cow. The light casts a dull glow on the bedroom wall, as he attempts to quietly step his way over piles of discarded clothes littering the floor, edging ever closer to our bed.

I hold my breathe. It's decision time. Is he going to head left towards my husband's side of the bed or veer right and come to me? It's always me. On the rare occasion my husband has been roused from his slumber, he will whisper to our son to come to him. He will easily wrap our small boy in his arms so that he's lying tucked into his armpit, snug and cosy.

But today is not one of those days. Today the small stealth terrorist sneaks towards me before shining the night light directly into my eyes and pronouncing: 'I'm thirsty mummy.'

I fumble for my water glass and give him a sip. Then in an inelegant dance involving several knees and other hard bony bits, he hoists himself up and over me so that he can lie spreadeagled in the bed. My husband grunts and rolls over.

'Cuddle me mummy,' he whispers in a voice mere decibels away from a shout. I wrap my arm around him and snuggle him into me. It's a wonderful oneness, warmth, a reminder of the tiny baby he once was. Contented I shut my eyes...

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi .... and the snuggle ends with a pointy elbow rammed into my nose and another full volume stage whisper of: 'I want to get up and have milk mummy.'

'Atsigsoclock,' I mumble, desperately clinging to the last few strands of sleep that are keeping me anchored to semi-consciousness. 'NO, NOW!' he whispers emphatically. 'Firstsnuggle,' I say attempting to regain the loveliness of the few seconds of closeness.

He lies supine for another half minute. Then performs the crocodile death roll, grabbing the duvet and attempting to roll himself and me up in it. I push him back into the space between my husband and I, pleading: 'Lie still'. He does. For ten seconds. Then he rides his imaginary bicycle under the covers, scraping his toenails up and down the length of my leg. I ignore it until I feel he might gouge a varicose vein, so grab his leg and hold it still.

Restrained he has a momentary lapse of energy allowing me just time enough to drift off towards slumberville...

GAH! My eye is prised open and the night light shone directly into my fully dilated pupil. I'm awake. I don't want to be. 'Turn...the...light...off," I stage whisper through clenched teeth. 'But I'm thirsty and hungry and I want to go downstairs,' he wails. 'It is six o clock!'

I lift my head wearily off the pillow and glance at the clock. 5.47 the red numbers glow with evil malevolence. 'Thirteen more minutes,' I say and turn my back on him in the vain hope that it will make me invisible to him.

It doesn't. The teddies, the monkey and the cow decide that my head is the best place for them to have a tea party. I move further away so that I'm lying on a knife edge, where the mattress ends and the cold winter air starts. I balance precariously, every muscle taught. Sleep scurries away. Adrenalin has taken its place.

I am kicked, jostled, poked, prodded, nagged and scraped for a further three minutes of agony until I give up the fight.

I sigh. One of those sighs that starts at your toes and works its way up so that your chest swells to maximum capacity before exhaling a night's worth of carbon dioxide. 'C'mon then,' I say fumbling about on the floor for my slippers.

'Use my night light mummy,' the devil child kindly offers, chipper and full of beans now that he's started the day.

'Thank you,' I say. And I finally understand what it means to be a parent.

Good bloody morning.

When? When will it end? These hideous early mornings. Four and a half years now and still our children rise well before 6am. Everyone said it was a phase. They'll grow out of it. Just wait till they're teenagers. Well bring on the bloody teens is what I say.

The problem, I've realised, is my husband. He has defective genes that means he naturally wakes at about 4am. He appears to have passed those genes onto our children. And I know I've ranted about this before and the solution is obvious -if he's up, he can deal with the children.

BUT, during the week, husband gets up early and hops on a train to London, going to a gym before starting his working day. Well done him. However, that leaves me to deal with the beastie boys.

I'll be fast asleep and hear the plodding of small feet. They always go to their father's side of the bed first because they know they're less likely to lose a limb that way. On seeing their father's empty bed, they immediately say: 'Is it morning? Can we go downstairs? Is daddy here?' On the mornings that husband hasn't gone into work early, I happily mumble: 'Daddy down, go.' And off they trot, ready to share the dawn with their dad. (I realise that this causes inconsistency and lets the children believe that it's ok to get up that early, but as a parent, you take the path of least resistance particularly if it means additional sleep.)

But should daddy already be hurtling towards the big city on First Great Western, the situation doesn't work out quite as well. In reply to the 'Can we go downstairs?' question, I mumble: 'No, snotmorningyet, getinmybedkeepquietandstill.' They crawl in and for about 5 seconds we have a lovely cuddle. And then the wriggling/inane questions/verbal diarrhea starts. 'Mummy, why don't dogs have wings?' 'Mummy, I'm not going to pre-school because I don't like my friends.' 'Mummy, when can we get a pet?' 'Mummy, when can we go to Disneyland?' 'Where's daddy?' 'My pillow isn't comfy.' 'I need more room.'

(On the subject of needing more room, we have the world's biggest bed which we bought in the USA. And let's face it, most Americans need big beds. Well ours is called a Californian Super King. It is roughly the size of a small football field. We bought it because my husband is six foot five and I like personal space when sleeping. Yet despite the vast dimensions of our bed, our children are still able to force me onto a postage stamp size space while they starfish their way around the rest of it.)

Anyway, so the child is wriggling and talking and elbow jabbing and toenail raking itself into my bad books. And just when I think it can't get worse, plod plod plod plod plod, and in comes the next one.

So once again we have: 'Is it morning yet? Can we go downstairs? Where's daddy?' I then growl: 'Snotmorningyet.Getinliestilldon'ttalk.' So obviously that works because then their are two bored boys who think it's much more fun to burrow down to the bottom of the bed to make a tent with the duvet than actually sleep. No tent is complete without pillows so gradually all the pillows make their way down towards my feet, including the last square of the one I'm attempting to use and I have my head unceremoniously yanked upwards as they attempt to free it.

Then the fighting starts about who owns which pillow and who's got more space. Elbows fly. Toenails dig deeper. The rolling and yanking of covers reaches its zenith. I snap.

'GET OUT OF MY BED NOW! GET OUT! GET OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT!' At which point they both start to wail as I obviously look like some kind of insane she-devil with hair standing on end, yesterday's mascara not quite removed and a look of death lurking in my eyes. 'But we want to sleep,' they wail. 'WELL THEN BLOODYWELL SLEEP. THE NEXT PERSON WHO SO MUCH AS BREATHES TOO LOUDLY WILL BE LOCKED IN THEIR ROOM.'

Silence and stillness descends for about 3 seconds. Then the giggling starts. Then 'Mummy, the clock says six one five. Does that mean it's morning yet?' 'No. It's only morning when it says six three zero.' And so they start the count down. 'Mummy, the clock says six one six.' 'Mummy, the clock says six one seven.......' etc.

My day would be infinitely better if I just resigned myself to the fact that I am by this stage well and truly awake and got out of bed. But I fight on, determined to win this battle. Each minute by minute announcement ratchets up my bad mood by several notches until we finally reach the magical 6.30am and I huffily get out of bed. They tear off down the stairs all excited to finally be freed from the confines of bed before starting the fight about who's going to have the orange milk cup. I pee. Make coffee. And curse my husband and vow that from now on we will enforce the no milk or tv before 6.30am rule and that they will be trained to sleep/read books in their room until the alloted hour.

But I know it'll never happen. Not until they turn 16 anyway.