bed Archives - Circles in the SandCircles in the Sand

There must be someone else who loves that feeling at the end of the day – when you cocoon yourself in the duvet, your toes slide down to the end of the bed and your whole body exhales with relief?

It’s such a lovely sensation, I don’t understand why my kids think I’m committing such a terrible, heinous crime when I put them to bed.

The boys share a room and if – after cajoling them through the whole bath, teeth, book routine – they would just let me turn the light out and go downstairs while they kept each other company (isn’t that why you have two children?), I’d be a nicer person.

But, no, instead they get hyped up, keep themselves awake and compete for my attention like their lives depend on it.

If I leave the room, LB – who’s still of a clingy age – tantrums until there’s so much adrenalin pumping round his little body he might as well be doing a bungee jump.

It’s easily the most frustrating part of my day, especially now I’m back at work for a while. Aside from a bleary-eyed rush in the morning, the bedtime debacle is the only interaction I get with them during the week – and on a bad night leaves me with a 20-minute long evening by the time the circus finally subsides.

It all goes a lot smoother when DH is home, so I’ve started doing something rather underhand when he’s away. If you compare it to drugging them with sleeping pills (which has crossed my mind) or leaving the house when they behave like this (also tempting), it’s really not that bad.

I say to the boys, “Daddy’s on the phone. He’s calling to see if you’re in bed,” then I pretend to talk on my mobile, shaking my head, umming and making conversation at appropriate intervals.

It works so well, I’ve rolled it out now to saying I have a hotline to DH (1-800-DADDY) wherever he is in the world.

It’s only backfired once, when BB wanted to talk to him and so – like a family friend who used to call Father Christmas in Lapland for us when I was little did – I pretended DH had been cut off.

I really don’t mean to make DH the bad cop when he’s not even here, but now when I bring the milk upstairs, I grab my phone – it’s either that or have SuperNanny on speed dial.

At stupid o’ clock this morning, the grey light of dawn only just creeping round the curtains, my human alarm clocks dragged me from some rather enjoyable early-morning dreams.

If just one boy appears, there’s a chance he’ll go back to sleep. But when you hear the pitter patter of two sets of feet running across the marble floor, it’s usually game over and a full 17 hours before you get another go at the whole getting a good night’s sleep thing.

So, at 5.40am – a weekend, of course – I was resigned to a day of muddling along in a tired, fuzzy-brained state, nothing unusual in that. Then something really astonishing happened.

Suddenly, it was 8.45am. The house was quiet. The boys not in bed, but not making a peep. They’d vanished – and I’d slept through the whole thing!

I found them downstairs, glued to the TV watching cartoons in Arabic (learning something, perhaps?)

They’d let me go back to sleep – a first! And there were clues everywhere that they’d looked after themselves.

The puddle of milk. Chairs dragged across the room so they could climb up to get snacks from out-of-reach cupboards. The kitchen scissors on the floor, used to open packets of M&Ms. Biscuit crumbs everywhere.

Why, next weekend they might even pack their own lunch boxes and head off to joy ride the Metro all day.

It’s another definite sign – along with ditching the toddler car seat, breezing out the house without the stroller and our semi-successful interventions to cut down on whining – that they’re growing up and life’s getting a bit easier.

Bitter-sweet? Maybe. But, mostly, utterly wonderful (I do love my sleep), even if I pay for it this afternoon when their early start leads to crabbiness in spades.