Week 94- getting served, losing your V plates and tag-teaming dinner

Nancy has started putting herself to bed.

This is a bigger high than passing my degree, losing my V plates AND getting served for the first time, all rolled into one.

It had all gone nuclear again.

We’d stopped giving Nancy her baby bottles before bed, and with it came tantrums on an epic scale.

And I just thought, this is how it’s going to be from now on. Tag-teaming dinner, whilst the other one tries to sooth her, or sing louder than her screams.

I haven’t exactly been proactive in writing in the evenings, but there was no way to get the old grey matter working creatively after 2 hours of non-stop tears. Often mine.

I’m not even sure how long the not-going-to-sleep went on for. When you’re in the midst of a crisis, or ‘phase’ as all the baby books understatedly refer to it, it feels like forever.

Then on Monday Nancy had a bath, had her teeth brushed, said 'night night' to Ben, then, as we went into her bedroom, whispered, ‘go to bed, Mummy.’

I put her in her cot. She snuggled down with a plastic duck meant for the bath that she’d nicked off her cousins last weekend.

And shut her eyes.

I didn’t breathe for such a long time that my chest started to convulse a little bit.

Then I shut her bedroom door.

And that was it.

Asleep.

Halle-fucking-lujah.

I have no idea how long this will last, but suddenly we have our evenings back.

There might even be the possibility of asking someone other than immediate family to babysit.

Without getting too ahead of myself, I could go on a date with Ben again that isn’t just downing a pint in the pub opposite our house at 9.30pm, back by 9.45.

I can write the play I’ve been pretending to write for the last year.

It’s going to be AMAZING.

I’ve just got to not take this for granted, really make use of the time.

Or, like passing my degree, losing my virginity or getting served for the first time, it will be a bit of a waste of time once I’ve stopped showing-off about it.