I’ve slept in the last twelve hours. For about five of them. Not only that, I’ve had breakfast, and a shower, and am about to make a cup of tea and sit down to hopefully manage to get all of it drank (certainly should if he stays asleep until he’s due his next feed). I may even get to put on a wash and therefore have clean jeans tomorrow. For this reason, my son is gorgeous to me right now. He’s asleep in his car seat, making little grunting noises all snuggled up in his sleep suit and big blanket, and he is divinely gorgeous.
Yesterday he wasn’t such a gorgeous child until about mid afternoon. Yesterday I hadn’t had tea, or a shower, didn’t go near breakfast until about 1pm. Instead I cried when he cried because he hadn’t stopped crying for long enough for me to get more than 20 minutes sleep in about six hours. He’s sixteen days old and can already reduce a grown woman to tears, god help us when he gets to the teenage years.
I now understand why sleep deprivation is used as a torture technique. My son would have been headhunted by the leading intelligence agencies at about 9am yesterday morning. And yet this morning he snores quietly up at me, looking angelic like butter wouldn’t melt.
These are the moments I have to keep for the moments when he’s crying and I’m crying and my mind tells me I’m not doing it right. This image of this sleeping beautiful tiny boy sleeping to my right, and a steaming cup of tea in my hand staring down at him.