Scout and Ace

I have been up for many, many hours, so excuse me if this is not particularly coherent. This is partly why I have only started a blog in the past year. There was a LOT of sleep deprivation going on in this household in the early years. I was messaging a friend the other day, saying that motherhood really makes you appreciate the little things in life, such as drinking a cup of tea in peace, going to the toilet in peace, or having an unitnerrupted conversation. However, THE thing it makes you appreciate most is the gift of being able to get enough sleep. I remember being tortured by the feeling that I was in some kind of sleep prison, where other people dictated when I could sleep (never when I wanted to) or couldn't sleep (pretty much all the time).

I have always been a massive fan of sleep. It does not seem fair that, as a baby who slept through the night from FIVE WEEKS OF AGE, I should have two children, neither of whom slept through the night consistently until they were five YEARS of age. I used to ask to go to bed when I got home from school. One of my favourite things as a teenager was going to bed whilst it was still light to read my book and drop off again (yes, once again I am harking back to those party years). Yes, I have always liked getting up relatively early, but 3am used to be a regular morning wake-up time for me, and that is beyond early. That is dark, lonely, stagnant dead time which should be spent dreaming about going out to dinner with Gethin Jones.

In those days, I would not have dreamt of starting a blog. Getting up, eating, wearing clean clothing and having some positive interaction with my immediate family during the day was pretty much all I could muster back then. And I didn't always manage all of those. However, now I have the freedom to eat hot food, drink hot tea, have a conversation without interruption (occasionally) and go to the loo solo. I can also pretty much guarantee that when I go to bed, I can sleep and get up quite a few hours later. Bliss. Heaven. Having older children is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

So tonight's reading. Mr M is reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to them. It's a landmark occasion, because when I read them I encouraged Mr M to read them, and was greeted by a none-too-elegant response. I told him then that when we had children I would make him read Harry Potter to them, and he agreed, thinking that would be many decades into the future. Ha! A is enjoying it, C is very much yet to be convinced.

I read C one of his library books which was Scout and Ace and the Scary Bear by Rose Impey. I like Scout and Ace. They are nice and straightforward to read, but the pictures by the brilliant Ant Parker are really lively and interesting, and Scout and Ace are cheeky, funny characters. This book got plenty of laughs from C, and turned bedtime from an over-tired stress zone to a jolly old time.