Strange Days Indeed

Baby D is going through a rapid phase of development at the moment. He's now officially mobile. Inspired by the A-Team he spends his days busily rolling commando style across the floor, then, when he’s bored of that, barks commands at me to sit him back up, where he stays for a few seconds before flopping down onto his tummy and starting off again. You wouldn’t think he’d cover much ground but yesterday, I popped into the kitchen to flick on the kettle and came out to find he’d made his way to the cat’s bowl, tipped out the water and was about to chow down on her nuts.
The other big development is less fun as Baby D has what the books call separation anxiety. In other words he’s learnt how to worry when I’m not there and last week wouldn’t let me out of his sight at bedtime. I guess when I said to him; “Night Night Baby D. See you in the morning,” he heard, “As soon as I leave this room I’m going to be abducted by aliens, transported to the planet Zog and you’ll never, ever, ever, ever see me again!!” The poor pet.
Anyway the upshot is that another chapter has been added to the ever increasing tome that is the saga of Baby D’s sleeping habits. He spent several nights waking up on the hour, panicking because his little hand wasn’t firmly gripping onto Mammy’s finger. When I’ve finally convinced him that the aliens aren’t on the way I've been woken again at 5.30 am by a series of escalating coughs that translates as: “Please rescue me. I’ve rolled around until I've squished myself in a corner of the cot that I can’t get out of!” So I've ignored all advice to the contrary and started to bring him into my bed in the morning. I do my best to catch up on some more sleep with one eye ajar, making sure he doesn’t brain me with the mobile he’s playing with and a finger hooked into his baby-gro in case he bungee jumps off the bed. That lasts about 20 minutes until I feel a hot breath and heavy breathing in my ear as Baby D presses his nose aginst me wondering what’s so interesting on my side of the bed.
Anyway I’m back to wandering the streets of Stoneybatter bleary eyed in search of caffeine and wondering how my friends with more than one baby do it, and not just do it but work, email and socialise as well?
Then, this evening, I looked into the bedroom as Hubbie was getting him ready for his bath. Baby D looked straight at me, wrinkled his tiny button nose and said softly for the first time: “Mama!”
And, just like that, all the sleepless nights were washed away.