t plus 4: sleep? over-rated.

The yoof has been home two nights now (and a couple of days too, apparently, although it’s a bit of a blur) and I’m being reminded of what it means to not get a good nights’ sleep.

I have to say that it’s a load better it being summer time: Dan was born mid-December so once we were installed at home and had got Christmas out of the way it was pretty much January. And how shit is January, really? It’s dark, cold, cash-poor and you spend most of it with that post-Christmas “must eat salad and lose 10 pounds” feeling. Miserable. They should ban January, same as Tuesdays. (If I haven’t drunkenly ranted to you before about Tuesdays, here’s my theory: Monday = ok, still a blur from the weekend. Wednesday = ok, middle of the week and the end is in sight. Thursday = ok, pretty much Friday. Friday IS Saturday. Saturday and Sunday = obviously ok. Which leaves Tuesday. Rubbish.)

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah. Sleep.

The boy is starving all the time and, I guess not suprisingly, doesn’t much like being places other than lodged on top of me or Rach. Given he’s spent 9 months with loads of gurglings and heartbeats and body movement that’s not altogether suprising. Last night at about 2am I was lying there inventing a kind of artificial chest thingy to attach new-borns to, with a heartbeat sound, some breathing movement and a little body-temperature heater. What do you think? Can I retire yet?

So here I am writing a blog post. Dan is out shopping with the parents-in-law, and Rohan is in a sling just in front of me. Which proves I’m a new man, surely?

Everything certainly seems a lot less dark this time around, both mentally and I guess cos it’s not January, physically, too. Having Dan around is just so hilarious it takes the focus off the inevitable inward-lookingness of these first few weeks. But ask me again once the sleep-deprivation starts inducing hallucinations.

t minus. . .unknown: sneaky earplugs

I’m sitting in a room surrounded by nothing. The erstwhile terribly comforting clutter which used to fill my office has now been tidied, thrown out, “re-distributed” or otherwise hidden. I’m a man in the middle of a mass-migration: me into the shed, my son into the (biggest, but I’m not bitter, really) room in the house, new squirt to be isolated into the sound-proofed box-room, only to come out when he/she is sensible, interesting and can fend for him/herself.

Being aware of the space around me – that feeling of change you get when you move house and go around it one last time to check you haven’t left any socks, suits or pianos in the empty rooms – is really starting to make the whole new baby thing feel very real. With that reality, I’m suddenly finding lots of memories are returning. I’m not big on memory – that’s what computers and lists are for – but it’s just come back to me, for example, that there was a period of time during the dark days of the first 6 months when I used to have earplugs hidden under my side of the bed.

Now, before you go thinking that I’m one of those “works all day, therefore I’m entitled to a good nights’ sleep, woman, and while you’re at it where’s my damn supper, stop moaning, nothing wrong with the missionary position?” type husbands – I’m not. I’m big on getting up, helping with feeds, sharing the tiredness, sympathising about sore nipples, breast pumping and all that stuff.

The fact that I had earplugs, however – not just any earplugs, but sneaky ones that I used to pop in when Rach wasn’t looking – says a few things to me in the cold light of day which I’d only admit to my nearest and dearest:

1. I was obviously stupid, because everyone knows earplugs don’t work,

2. I’m actually a bastard – the worst kind, because I masquerade as a caring kind of guy,

3. I should watch out because I have also been known to wear an eyemask, and not many marriages are built on the sexiness of sensory deprivation

In my defence: at the time, these factors disappeared into the blur. In fact anything sensible disappeared into the blur. There was a night, for instance, when I set up my laptop screen saver just in front of the Moses basket because I thought Dan would like it. Another night when I spent hours downloading and editing a heartbeat sound so I could leave it playing next to his cot. And don’t mention the projecting mobile Disney light thingy which I bought from Mothercare. Then too I was convinced that it would be the answer to all our problems. Only later did it become clear that Dan couldn’t see nearly far enough away for him to give a shit about the picture of Tigger dancing on the ceiling, and that actually he found the whole projection thing more unsettling than calming.

So the question is: have I learnt any kind of a lesson?

Maybe ask me at 3am in a couple of weeks as I strap my eye/ear combo on, plug in the lappie and power up the projector…