On the Buses

While you're awwing, I would invite you to note that her feet are all over my
side of the bed.

Hanna was working this weekend, and when not working was on call in case a delivery became available. It did, she got it, and this is awesome, but it did mean we had to face the dreaded bus weekend.

Andrew brought Arya up on the train and I decanted her from the pushchair to my bed, figuring we'd go with that again as it meant Andrew could sleep in her room and we should all get a decent night's sleep.

I reckoned without the Coriolis effect, which as we all know causes children in the southern hemisphere to rotate clockwise while they sleep, and children in the northern hemisphere to rotate anticlockwise. It's a purely natural phenomenon, which is small comfort when you wake at three in the morning with your daughter slumbering peacefully with her toes wedged underneath you and forcing your spine to contort awkwardly. Still, I managed to get up in good time, and wake Arya up for actual breakfast. Then things got a little slower because Arya wanted to help with everything, but we made the bus (by the skin of our teeth) and got into ballet. There, Arya was skittish, apparently because she needed the toilet but didn't want to say, and once I'd got her changed and wanted to do her hair, she decided that she didn't want to do ballet, now or ever, although no we couldn't give the uniform to someone else.

In the end, I had to take her in and stay for half the lesson before being able to slip out, and she still came to the door to check I was right outside. Afterwards, she insisted on a proper change before leaving, but she was good about it and we managed to catch the bus to Soham handily. Unfortunately, not being able to leave the studio during the lesson meant that I hadn't got anything for snacks, so Andrew had to go up the road and find the only shop in Soham to buy what he could - Dairylea Dunkers, Quavers(1) and ham, plus a bottle of Ribena - so that Arya could eat and drink. Arya was somewhat distraught that the drinking fountain at the school was out of order, but went in to Tumble Tots like an absolute champ and asked for the toilet when she came out.

Basically, the thing about Saturday was that she was tired; she hadn't got to sleep until well past nine and then we woke her at about seven. This meant that she had little to work with between 'manic energy' and 'everything is terrible'. Bedtime was thus a hoot. She ate her mostly homemade(2) chicken korma beautifully, but then she began refusing to do her bedtime routine right up to the point that we had both told her that she was out of chances and she was going to sleep in her bed on her own. Cue tears, and... I feel kind of bad, because I know what was going on. She wasn't mucking about to be naughty, but because finishing up her prep meant going to bed and not being with Daddy and Daddy anymore. She wanted us to chase her; she wanted us to pay attention to her. We wanted her to go to bed and not be so tired in the morning; seriously, the difference after a couple of decent nights last week was astonishing.

"No selfies!"

Eventually we got her into bed. She struggled with sleep and eventually lost, but it was not an easy night, and when I went to bed she once more swung her feet over. I tried to move her and she half-woke to complain 'but I'm cosy'. I did what I could with the feet and mostly slept okay, but was only partly successful in letting her lie in as she woke to a leaky nappy, poor mite.

There ensued a grand old time as we tried to focus her on any one thing and she bounced around:

"I'm wet!"
"Well, let's get your shorts and nappy off and get you dressed, then..."
"Wait(3)! My morning vitamin!"
"How about we get you dressed first, or at least out of..."
"No, my morning vitamin!"

After we'd got her out of the nappy, then given her a vitamin, then got her dressed, then weathered a storm of tears, established that she was upset because Daddy Andrew had put her into the wrong pair of knickers (she'd handed him two from the box without further explanation,) persuaded her that asking properly would be better than wailing, changed her knickers because she'd asked nicely, then got her dressed again, it was time for bed.

Breakfast! I mean it was time for breakfast. It just felt like it was time for bed(4).

Sunday was an unashamedly lazy day. We sat out, played some Where's My Water? and watched My Little Pony. We had a big, latish lunch of pasta and cheese - over which we discussed the possibility of Arya making conversation as an attention getter, rather than rubbing cheese sauce on her clothes -and I saw them off at about half three with a care package of apples and rice cakes and Ribena, because I didn't want them to be travelling after it got seriously dark and cold. Arya tried to delay and ended up in tears. I wanted to cuddle her forever, and instead had to agree to look after her sticker book for her, promise to see her soon (she and Hanna will be over tonight for a school thing,) and slip Andrew the last of the jelly babies of courage.

Some time later, Hanna dropped me a line to ask me to give Andrew something to bring home and I realised that the plan had been to send them back after dinner to meet Hanna at the station.

(1) Not gluten free.
(2) Sauce was from a jar.
(3) "Wait" is one of her phrases of the moment. Another is "what in tarnation." Thanks for that one, My Little Pony.
(4) As a rule of thumb, the number of photos of Arya I manage to take is inversely proportional to how tired I am.