Conflict

If you follow me on Twitter you'll have heard me banging on and on about how tired I am today. Oh, lordy I'm tired. Tired as a very tired thing. Tired as a man who's only had a couple of hours sleep and now can't think well enough to come up with a decent analogy. Or simile. Or anything else.

I'm typing this on Word, and there's a big squiggly green line under pretty much that entire opening paragraph. Usually, I'd treat that squiggly line with utter contempt. Ha! Word. You think you know better than me? Piss off Word, piss off.  But today I'm tired, so I look at the green squiggly line and I believe it. That's how tired I am.

I'm this tired because my son decided last night that sleep was an optional activity. Usually amenable to a bit of shut eye, bed at seven, up at around half five. Usually one brief wake up sometime in the hours which are usually reserved for people who use Class A drugs to stay awake.

We're lucky. I know this. He's always been a pretty good sleeper. I like to think he got that from me.

Last night we got a taste of how different it could be.

Bed at seven. Up at eight. Inconsolable until well after midnight. Awake again less than twenty minutes later. It's all a bit hazy past there, but I reckon I can recall at least four separate periods of pacing his room, praying to a higher being I don't even believe in, willing him to let the sandman in to his tiny body.

But the point of all this is not just that he wouldn't sleep, or that I'm tired. We've all been there with babies, it's part and parcel. Everyone knows you trade in the right to sleep for as long as you want the moment that little genetic portmanteau of you and the baby's co-creator.

The point of this is that losing those precious hours of down time for your body makes you irritable. Maybe even angry.

Why, when all I'm trying to do is cuddle and comfort you, do you insist on bucking, writhing, kicking at my torso?

What do you want me to do?

What do you want me to not do?

Why can't you just give in, relax, drop off?

All these questions and more actually left my lips last night. In tones that were probably anything but soothing for the poor little mite. Not shouting. Tense. Bristling with barely restrained annoyance.

A baby which won't sleep puts you at war with yourself. All you want is to go to sleep yourself. Your body knows it's tired, even if the baby's doesn't.

In those moments, those minutes, those hours of wailing, sobbing, tears and tantrums there is an internal conflict being played out. I never, not even for the tiniest fraction of a moment, doubt my unconditional love for Cam, but I also know that if he had been anyone's baby but my own I would have shut the door to his room, stuffed cotton wool in my ears, and ignored him.

Those questions, uttered through gritted teeth, were the physical manifestation of a desire to give up. To find a way to get my own sleep. Of an underlying selfishness and weakness. A doubt in my ability to carry one caring.

But I did carry on. Of course I did. How could I not? I carried on. I rocked, I jogged, I wore an imperceptible groove into the carpet of his room as I trudged back and forth, up and down, bouncing, whispering, soothing, hoping, wishing. When I wasn't doing those things, my wife was. We both greeted today feeling leaden, achy and wretched.

Of course, I hope that tonight will see an improvement. But, if it doesn't, at least I can be almost certain it won't be worse, and now I know that I can cope, it should be easier, right?

Thanks for reading.