interruptus.

Morning Taf!

2.00 am

His manly physique is pressed against her body. Mixed aromas of grape and grain and Christmas buffet prevail as his heavy breathing rasps in her ear. His wandering hands move eagerly across her trying to get back to sleep sleeping form.

And then ParsleySage came home.

Morning darling!

If I'd had a camera, I'd have blogged it through the medium of Photography. But I didn't.

So picture the scene: Six pushing pram - badly, because my pram driving skills are crap, and I am the kind of pram driver I despised before I had children.

Six is Christmas shopping.

Six observes the welcome sight of the following sign on an exit door in Leicester's largest shopping centre as she heaves the pram up a slope:

Automatic door - Wheelchair friendly.

Six observes another sign underneath:

These doors are currently set to manual.

"You've got a hairy willy, and I haven't got a hairy willy..."

Taf, 3, notifies Dad of his biological observations. He's very educational.

Went out to a Christmas do with my fellow arts development workers from around the county last night.

I went last year and some of you may recall my horror when the dessert on the Christmas menu turned out to be ice cream with cold shredded beetroot!!!!!!!!!!

Last night got off to a great start. Parsley dropped me off, a howling baby in the back seat of the car. I know he was really howling because it was his bedtime and he was tired, but Captain Paranoia was translating the howls as "I can't believe you're going out and leaving me. I'm not four months old yet! You bad, bad, bad mother..."

Anyway, PS dropped me off early due to aforementioned bedtime, so I descended the steps into a very nice restaurant (which PS, who'd been before, had told me was "fantastic"). A nice man went through the list of bookings with me but I couldn't see any familiar names there at all.

After waiting for half an hour I decided I really needed to try and phone someone to find out where I actually should have been. To top matters off I had left my phone at home, so I had Parsley's, which meant phoning home to get Parsley to find numbers on my mobile (to a heart-sinking backdrop of baby screaming).

Shortly afterwards, I did bump into two other colleagues in the freezing night air outside the restaurant, and we quickly established that we were all in the wrong place.

With some trepidation we got a taxi across town to the scene of last year's beetroot crime, where the assembled were already full of wine, starters, and "what time d'ye call this" type of comments which as you can imagine we welcomed with jovial cheer.

Well the food was alright, but I think I must be suffering from Post-Traumatic Beetroot Stress Disorder because the nearer it got to the Dessert hour the more jittery I became.

With good reason.

I can't actually describe the dessert to you because I fear a relapse, but I shall relay for your consideration two of the key ingredients.

Spaghetti and cashew nuts.

I am doing Cleaning.

Taf: [surveying his collection of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends] Would you like to play with Percy, or the car?
Parsley: [boldly] I'd like to play with Percy, please.
Taf: But - would you like to play with Percy, or the car?
Parsley: I'd like Percy, please.
Taf: But Percy is my engine.
Parsley: Oh. I'll be the car then.
[Six is holding the baby in front of her face to hide her giggles at this exchange]
Taf: [irritably] I've only come here to play with your Percy!!

Parsley's daughter liked the birthday present I got her...

...and... (drum roll)

she gave me a HUG!!!

This has made my day. It even made up for Taf screaming "I don't want your stinking carrots!" down the hall.

...tired (it's 5 to 4 am. Apparently I slept "for four hours" on the sofa earlier. A state I have not managed to reattain since retiring to bed at 1am).
...bunged up. Have Karvol tissue shoved down cleavage.
...resigned to my world of bizarre ailments, which currently includes a mouth ulcer on the tip of my tongue. Ludicrously painful, in case you were wondering.
...reluctant to stop breastfeeding, even though nature and/or my son's whims seem to be leading us that way. Even if it does mean I can "go out on the lash" and start wearing decent underwear again. Because I know I won't have any more children, and I desperately wanted to breastfeed. I suppose 3 and a half months isn't bad, what with the mastitis (twice) and the having to stay in hospital and have an operation when he was less than 6 weeks old and all that stuff. I mean, I did my best. But he cries when I feed him now, most of the time. But when he doesn't, I love it when he comes off the breast and gazes up at me with his huge indigo eyes, and I don't want to let it go.
...a bit confused. ????*
...that I should have done Reading A Book instead of blogging, cos it's better for my sleep habits.

I would like to wake up my son just now, which sounds crazy as he's so bloody difficult to get to sleep, but I want a cuddle with him, just him, he's so delicious. I shan't, of course. The insomniac's curse: listening to other people sleeping. When I was younger and my cousin came to stay I used to get bored of waiting for her to wake up and I'd flick 2p pieces onto the bed. It was subtle but it usually worked eventually.

*Not sure whether to lecture myself or listen to myself. My Self. I mean (blah, blah, blah). Scaredy cat.

I miss my mum (because i'm ill probably) and not just my mum exactly but what my mum might have been if she hadn't spent so much time trying to make me perfect/intelligent/the best at everything when I clearly wasn't.

Came home from a dance competition once, at which I hadn't done particularly well, and my brother asked my mum how I'd done.

My mother (within earshot of me): She was outclassed.

But I did try with the dancing, unlike the academic stuff, and she was fair enough when she screamed at me the day I got three A levels with grades that didn't meet her standards (BCD) "You didn't work, you didn't try!" because I didn't work or try, but it didn't stop me flying at her that day like I never have before or since. I'd come home, you see, with 3 A levels, and they wouldn't speak to me. Either of them. Because I was such a disappointment.

Best not think about that, as it always makes me glum. It's all meant to be unconditional isn't it? So perhaps I'd better go back up to my son's sleeping indigo eyes and parsley's sleeping back and try and get some kip in before the baby wakes up at 06:something.

*I mean, I have been known to get stuff Wrong...

My throat hurts and my nose is running.
I have that nasty shivery-achy-tingly all over feverish feeling.
Taf chinbutted me by accident earlier when we were watching Mister Maker make a Duck.
The baby took feckin hours to get to sleep.
And then, and THEN, I log on and find tales of you all having fun in Liverpool.

*clutches Lemsip and sulks for England, then realises you can't drink Lemsip while poking bottom lip out*