I Can’t Get No Sleep (Insomnia) – Faithless.

It’s Nursery FM that stirs me from my slumber on Monday morning. The glow of light from the other side of the bed would indicate that Daddy Simon is already awake and has probably been Googling himself for the past twenty minutes or so. It’s still a bit too early for me to be getting up and tackling the world as Daddy Simon has probably gathered from my Chewbacca-esque responses to his questions. Good – he’s stopped talking and goes to deal with the downstairs DJ – it’s only Mono at the moment as Stereo is still snoring his wee head off – so I wriggle back down into my cocoon and turn my attention to falling asleep again. The fall is rudely broken by a chubby little finger jabbing me in the eye. I’ve apparently agreed that it would be a good idea to bring Alexandra into bed with us so as not to disturb Calder who is now the only member of the household that is still dormant. The hope was that she would be so delighted to have the attention of both Daddies that she would smugly snuggle down and dream of how she would torment her brother with this new twist on the “Who’s the favourite child” game. ( It’s Pushkin – but neither of them know that.) But she didn’t.

Usually reluctant to partake in the ‘ …and eyes and ears and nose and mouth…’ bit of ‘Head,Shoulders, Knees and Toes” rhyme she’s now done with prodding my eyes and has moved on to picking her own nose and then jamming whatever has stuck to her finger up mine and then has a go at getting her whole fist into my mouth. Looking somewhat puzzled at my reluctance to take part with my usual exuberance she has a good old tug at my ear… before announcing that she wants ” Duddles” and tips her whole body weight over onto my face.Where the Billy Jean King has Daddy Simon gone??? He’s back on his own side of the bed and although it’s still fairly dark I’m pretty sure that he’s smirking. The Princess of Darkness is placed back in the centre of the bed between us and I attempt to sooth her back to sleep by stroking her forehead.

“Ahhh! This is the picture of familial bliss that you see in a ‘Dreams’ TV commercial that we usually fast forward past” I think to myself as we all ….” OUCH,OUCH,OUCH!!!” The little minx has slipped a hand under the covers and is now pulling out chest hairs and you can be sure that it won’t be the grey ones!

It’s abundantly clear that I’m not going to get any sleep and I flick on the monitor to see if Calder has stirred. He’s sat up in his cot staring into space seemingly enjoying the fact that he’s got a nice quiet room.

Not that he’s any better as a bedfellow! He had a couple of rough nights when we returned from our road trip to Scotland and in a bid to protect Alexandra and Daddy Simon’s sleep I took Calder into the spare room to sleep with me. The poor little mite was struggling – he had a high temperature and would wake himself up coughing and spluttering but having one of us with him calmed him down fairly quickly and he would soon settle down again.Calder may well have been a dog in a former life. On each occasion before settling down he would do two circuits of the bed in his sleeping bag,have a parp,and then doze off. It was funny at eleven o’clock, amusing at one o’clock but by three o’clock I’d decided that if he fell off the bed on his next lap he could just pollute the air down there.

I love cuddles with our kids but I’m so glad that they like to sleep in their own beds as much as we like to have ours to ourselves.

Monday is a wet,miserable day and if it wasn’t going to be our last day at Twins Club I would have probably have given it a miss. We’re up a bit earlier than usual – thanks again Alexandra – so I get ahead on a few household chores and get us all into the car,pleased to see that we’re only running ten minutes late this week. Yay – go me!

I always find it difficult to conduct a conversation at Twins Club. My own hearing is dreadful, there is always the background noise of children enjoying themselves and I still have to try and keep an eye on our own two kids that seem to insist on being on opposite sides of the room most of the time. So I apologise to anyone that I may not have had time to say goodbye to properly.Alexandra and Calder always seemed to enjoy the time that they spent there. Lovely Su looked after everyone so well and I’m sure that she’ll be very much missed as she too goes on to pastures new. But fear not – we do have a Twins Club near our new home and will be making that a regular Wednesday haunt.

Alexandra’s early rise catches up with her and she makes it clear that it’s time for home- she gets a quick nap in the car and wakes up to find herself in Sainsbury’s. We’re having friends over for drinks in the evening and so I need to replenish drink supplies. I’m hoping that no one in the wines and spirits section recognises us from Saturday’s Mail and when I get to the checkout and the operator asks me if we’re having ANOTHER party I wonder if I can use up some Nectar points to slap her.

Home in time for lunch and then much excitement when Grampy arrives. Grampy is continually questioned as to where “Nana?” might be and I’m sure that he must feel as though he’s been grilled by CSI Catford. Distraction created to allow Grampy to get on with jobs he came to do and the lack of a morning nap catches up with the munchkins and they sleep until tea time.

Fabulous evening catching up with a fantastic couple of friends and surprisingly it’s not as messy as previous gatherings have been so it’s looking like the day I had written off as ‘more than likely hungover’ could be pretty productive.

4 sleeps til moving day …

A rare shot of Alexandra and Calder in the same place at the same time at Twins Club.