hand, it's time for bed

It’s mid March and it’s a stinker. 40 degrees today. 39 yesterday. Forecast for more 35+ days into next week. The whirl of time has sucked up January and February and the first school term is almost over.

We cleaned up our house through January. Late afternoon trips to the Northcote pool, girls splashing. Stephanie excited and nervous and jumping in the water. Kyla grinning and clapping and trying to wriggle free and swim on her own.

We enjoyed a week at the beach towards the end of January. Sharing a house with mates & feeling the dominance of children’s sleeping schedules over all else. Lounging around on trampoline, cockatoos screeching, koalas dozing overhead, echidnas rambling along the tracks. Getting down to the beach each day for a late afternoon splash.

Stephanie talking and enunciating each thought and each happening; watchful at the beach. Happiest with spade in hand , filling bucket after bucket with sand. Very wary of the ocean. Small, indecisive steps toward the water and then a sprint back up the beach as the next wash comes through.

Kyla wakeful through the night. A wriggly, squirmy, restless and beautiful little girl. Eating fistsful of beach sand and throwing herself headlong into any hole/ sandcastle/ splash of ocean she can find. No hesitation in her crawls – she seems willing to tackle long-distance ocean swimming.

Night times a struggle as no amount of consistency, teach-to-sleep, control crying, control comforting, blah blah is making a scrap of difference. And we’re rooted.

February and school is back and work is back for me and CJ is working 2 days/week this year. I’m on 4 days/ week. We share the child care – CJ 3 days, me 1 day and mum 1 day. We are both very lucky and very happy to have arranged our lives in this way.

Ky still struggling through the night and CJ & I struggling a lot by now too. Anger? Frustration? Chronic tiredness. No explanations. Flicking from helplessness to unconditional love and support and back again. Over and over each night.

Kyla’s first trip to the doctor. To rule out any medical ailments. She’s OK. When she inevitably wakes, sometime between 1am and 4am, I’m bunking down on the floor of her room, positioned for a good “shhhhhhh”, as she wakes. It’s been a week and it’s working. We’re all sleeping more but the next step is obviously to stop doing it.

Steph calling us by our given names. “Hey Dave, whatchya doing Dave?” “Caf, caf, I’m reading books with Fluffy, Caf.” She has an array of alter-egos these days. When she’s eating porridge, she is to be addressed as “Goldilocks.” (Me: “Have you finished your porridge there Stephi girl?” Steph: “No, no, I’m Goldilocks.”) When unthreading shoelaces, as “the shoelace fairy”. Periodically whenever giants or beanstalks are mentioned, as “Jack”. Sometimes when the mood takes her as “Captain Feathersword”.

Stephanie talks all day, every day. She gives voice to other characters, including her favourite Fluffy and other teddy bears. Each night her right hand joins in a conversation with her left, saying (through Steph) “I want to go to the park,” just as we’re putting pyjamas on. Steph will then admonish her own hand (“Hand, you can’t go to the park. It’s time for bed, funny hand”). Laughs all round. Imagination is beautiful.

Kyla recognizes things as spoken now. “Kyla, where is Paddy bear?” will see her scan the surroundings, locate Paddy bear and then scramble across the floor at light speed towards the white bear. She is pointing. Sometimes I think she says “toot toot”, but maybe I’m imagining that. She is just starting to stand up independently and sway back and forth a bit before falling down again.

The girls are playing well together, though if anything Kyla is the dominant individual. Not responding to verbal instructions puts her out of Stephanie’s control. And her tendency to grab and yank fistfuls of Steph’s hair whenever she can has made her a redoubtable play-companion.

Holidays soon. My birthday soon. Grew a beard over the past 6 weeks or so; shaved it and also most of my hair off last night. Times are a changing here. The nights and days of relentless tiredness and exasperation are ceding to a better life. I have begun to think a little period of Big Challenges might be behind us. Hope so. The last few months have been tricky. Holidays on the horizon now & the prospects are good.