If I seem a little short today, it’s because i’m standing in a ditch.
HA HA HA HA HA!
Sorry, so sorry.
I would never normally make such a terrible joke but the sleep deprivation has quite addled me.

Why so tired, I hear you ask?
I will tell you…

At around 12:30am, I shuffled off to bed.
After carefully rolling Marital Unit to one side, I slipped under the duvet, plumped the pillows and lay down to await the sweet embrace of sleep.

Clearly, sleep had a headache last night and was no in mood for embrace, sweet or otherwise.

As the time neared 1:30am, I heard a whimper from the children’s room.
Just dreaming? I could only hope, perhaps they would…NO!
Child Unit 1 awoke and staggered into my bedroom, disheveled and bearing an aroma generally associated with the chap who drinks wine outside the local Londis all day.
The poor child had clearly had “an accident”, so I scrubbed her up, popped her into some clean pyjamas and tucked her in between Marital Unit and myself.
Through all of this, Marital Unit continued to snore, a sound akin to a breeze block going through a meat grinder.

Having checked that Child Unit 2 was still sleeping soundly, I returned to my bed.
Rather, I attempted to return to my bed and discovered something quite remarkable.
A small child is fully capable of filling one half of a double bed.
I shimmied her into the middle and made an attempt to get comfortable.
I was punched, prodded, poked, pummeled and at one point kicked in a most tender area.
I rolled from the bed to the floor, clutching my devastated testicles.
With Child Unit 1 now soundly asleep and Marital Unit doing her best strangled walrus impression, I pulled a small blanket over myself and attempted sleep once again.

I soon realised that the blanket was in fact a throw which we had decided against using on the sofa.
This throw, designed to cover a three seater sofa, was incredibly small.
I could keep my upper half warm at the cost of my feet, or have toasty toes but only if I allowed my nipples to freeze.

A stream of quiet expletives spewed from my lips as I writhed and wriggled, desperately trying to find a position in which all of me could escape the cold.
Such were my struggles, that the blanket was tossed to and fro and soon unfolded, revealing it’s actual size.
It had been folded in four the whole time!

After driving my forehead through the bedside cabinet in frustration, I managed to find something resembling comfort and tried, once more, for sleep.

At this point, somewhere in the dark hours around 4am, Child Unit 2 awoke.

He ran, shreaking, into my room, failed to see me on the floor, tripped over my legs and landed knee first on my already delicate nadgers.

Crying with pain, I pleaded with him to return to his room but it was not to be.

Marital Unit’s nighttime symphony continued with gusto, but Child Unit 1 showed signs of waking and to avoid all out armageddon I quickly tucked Child Unit 2 in next to me on my makeshift floor bed and hoped for the best.

Now, Child Unit 2 squirms about more than a jumping bean strapped to the electric chair…
In his quest for comfort, he slowly but surely pushed me under the bed.
Protesting at the amount of pillow space he had been allocated, he soon swiped the pillow out from under me.
I lay, half under the bed, using the sharp edge of the splintered bedside cabinet as a pillow.

I was uncomfortable, I was cold, but I had settled my entire family off to sleep.

Child Unit 2 snuggled next to me, his elbow lovingly cracking two of my ribs.
Child Unit 1 sleeping softly, doubtless soaking my mattress with urine.
And of course, Marital Unit, sleeping the sleep of the just and making a noise which put me in mind of a yak being beaten to death with a trombone.

Slowly, my eyes closed.

And then the bastard alarm went off.

 

One thought on “So very tired…”

  1. I’m still choking down the laughter Al! You need a contraption called the R.I.P Snore for the wife. My man about the house used to regularly rend the air with sounds that resembled someone chainsawing through a pig (not that I would!), until I made him use this gumshield type thing. It was that or banish him to the sofa for the rest of his natural….

    Keep it up.
    Emma

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