The darkest hour is just before dawn

Sleep problems. I have brought it on myself I suppose. Last night Orla fell asleep at 6pm and slept through the night and Stevie & I were both over the moon that for once she seemed to have had a good sleep and would be lovely and happy and refreshed today. I was especially pleased as we had a visit to the Kita scheduled in and I could do with having nice, well-behaved children with me. But today is day 1 of Stevie's latest work trip back to Derby and when this happens I always know better than to think that things might go well.

It's the same if he goes out for the evening. It's a cast iron guarantee that either one or both will play up, not sleep, start screaming wildly, or any combination of those. I usually find myself counting down the minutes until he gets home, but this time he won't be back till Wednesday night - late Wednesday night.

I haven't yet mentioned the current thing that Hamish is doing which is dragging his bed out from the wall a tiny sliver and then jamming himself down the back. After a while of sleeping like this he wakes up, presumably because it's seriously uncomfortable. I went in one time he was having (or meant to be having) his nap and he was down the back of the bed with the leg of the bed at his neck practically crushing his throat. Another time, at night I went in and I couldn't see him as he had squeezed himself under the bed, following presumably the path taken by his pillow and covers. It's not easy to get under Hamish's bed; it's one of these cotbeds that are about 3 inches off the ground.

I wondered whether this might be something like trying to find a small, dark space to sleep in, like a little den. The ceilings here are outrageously high, though his room is not enormous. Anyway, today we had (yet) another trip to IKEA where I bought one of those green leaf things that you can put above the bed to make a little canopy. It's got to be screwed to the wall which is a bit of a pain, but I'll get on to it tomorrow. Oh, and I bought an igloo. It's a tent and I thought I could put it in his room and fill it with quilts and things and he could maybe even nap there if he hates his bed. Desperate times and all that.

Needless to say, he still wakes at around 10 or 11pm and wails to be allowed into 'mummy's bed'. I may be the one sleeping in the igloo by the end of this week. Tonight though, I thought with them both being tired, I'd get them into bed relatively early and have a nice evening on my own. I planned to maybe do some reading, then get the dishes done, then put the light shade up in the dining room, build some bookshelves, have a cup of tea, tidy up all the toys/crap sprayed around the living room, and maybe watch Julie & Julia which I have wanted to watch for a while and which I managed to buy quite cheap in one of the supermarkets here.

A fantasy perhaps to do all that, but what did I get done? None of the above. First there was Hamish who now uses whatever he can to climb up and open the door handle of his bedroom. And if I leave him with no little 'step stools' then he finds something like a fire engine to bang at the door until it is opened. Tonight there was just no keeping him in there, plus he has grown so I think he can reach the handle, and there was no Daddy to really frighten him into being good and just going to his own bed for 3 hours. So I let him up thinking maybe he could watch the film with me. Instead what happened was that after about 10 minutes Orla started wailing. I went to see to her and asked her if she needed the toilet. She nodded 'yes', I took her and then got her back into bed. 3 minutes later she'd screaming. I go through and she seems to be in the midst of one of those night terrors. Brilliant. Hamish didn't help by standing chanting 'Orla crying!'.

I decided to just give up and go to bed. Hamish came into bed with me and fell asleep straight away. Then Orla started crying again and I went through and lay down in the single bed and just kept saying 'It's ok, mummy's here' every time she started up, which made her quiet again. Then Hamish realised I wasn't in the bed with him and started crying, so I went through and made sure he was ok. I checked his nappy and realised that there was no way it would make it through the night it was so full. I managed to change that with him still sleeping, so that at least gave me a sense of having achieved something!

So since then I have lain in bed afraid to go to sleep because I know it'll probably be no more than minutes before I have to see to a child again. What better time to blog and moan about it. I blame myself of course for this mess and have utterly decided to get Hamish out of the bed when we come back from our holiday at the beginning of September. It's going to be one big, long day though through till Thursday...ugh.

Send your thoughts on the Hamish behind the bed problem and packets of Pro Plus to the usual address...