…because marble doesn’t creak like wooden floorboards.   Every time I go past the boys’ room to get to ours, the floor creaks alarmingly and, nine times out of ten it wakes them up. Just like everything else. Alas.
Boys
We held the day, in the palm of our hands…
Forgive me for quoting Billy Joel songs, but what can I do, I am a product of the 1980s.
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This sleeping thing, it must change (for one thing it’s making me talk like yer man, Yoda). I read Minks’s thoughts on this the other day and I see what she means. It won’t be forever but, God, sometimes, it feels like forever. A typical evening proceeds as follows:
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8.30 – 3 children in bed, howling has subsided maybe even stopped.
Between 10.00 and 11.00 – We retire to bed.
Around midnight – Daniel starts flopping around in his cot like a landed fish. For about 5 minutes our dreams are filled with knocks on doors, stamping feet etc.
Five minutes later – Daniel starts to bellow, unimpressed by the slow response to the landed fish act. He is soothed back to sleep by whichever tired parent is on duty.
As Daniel is being put back in his cot – Michael wakes.
15-30Â minutes later – all is well and exhausted parent retires to own bed
About 4.00 am – Some baby wakes up. Parent far too exhausted to remember which one by morning. Parent falls asleep with contented baby in arms.
About 5.00 am – The other baby wakes up. Parent places first baby in cot and takes up howling baby begging it not to wake first baby. Parent falls asleep with different contented baby in arms.
About 6.00-6.30 am – Parent wakes up with a jerk and replaces sleeping baby in cot.  Other baby wakes. Parent crawls back to bed and prods other parent out to tend howling infant and face the day.
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And this is a good night because, you’ll notice, her highness didn’t wake up at all.
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To summarise “they ruled the night and the night seemed to last as long as six weeksâ€
Insights gained on public transport
I was on the metro recently (standing) and an elderly woman and her son were travelling together.  He was about my age and she was possibly in her 70s and looked very unwell.  She was leaning heavily against the wall for support.  Nobody got up to give her a seat. I looked very disapprovingly at the eight sitting commuters in my line of sight.  I didn’t say anything because her son was with her and I thought that, if he didn’t say anything, then it was hardly my place to step in.*  My deepest disapproval was reserved for a young man in his 20s with no visible handicap who was sitting comfortably while talking loudly on his mobile phone and casually surveying the rest of us.  I gave him my look of utter disdain. I have had some practice with the look of utter disdain. I once had to employ it against a range of men in their 50s and 60s who felt it was perfectly acceptable to warmly squeeze the shoulders of young women who came within their ample range.  I have to say that in that context it was not particularly effective and perhaps my friend D’s approach would have got better results, she suggested that I say to the next squeezer “touch me again and you pull back a bloody stumpâ€.  She told me that she had had good results with that in the past.  I opted to go for her sister’s approach of refining my look of utter disdain.  I spent some time curling my lip while she (the sister) sighed despairingly and said “no, no, that’s a come hither lookâ€.  I had always felt that she was entirely wrong about that.  However, the other day when eventually, the metro emptied out, I ended up sitting beside the loud young man.  I gave him my concentrated look of utter disdain and he winked at me. Well, that does explain a lot about the squeezers.
*Being helpful is sometimes not very helpful.  Witness the man who very helpfully rushed to help me put the boys’ buggy on the tram this morning.  He refused to let any passengers get out wrested the buggy from me and started pushing it forcefully on to the tram. In his enthusiasm, he managed to wake both boys (who had been sleeping peacefully) by somehow collapsing Daniel’s side of the buggy and poking Michael in the eye with the parasol. Both woke up and began to howl in understandable indignation. Struggling to make myself heard over the bawling, I thanked my helper through gritted teeth. There’s no pleasing some people.
Look, he may not have hair but he can sit up and clap his hands
Her (in the car): But I wanted Michael to sit beside me and you put Daniel beside me.
Me(with no intention of reloading to meet her whims): Why?
Her: Because I wanted to give Michael a rub on the head.
Me: Well give Daniel a rub on the head instead.
Her: But rubs on the head are only for babies with hair.
Me: Give Daniel a kiss then.
Her: But kisses are only for babies with hair.
Me: What can Daniel have so?
Her (after a pause for consideration):Â Well, I can laugh at him.
Today’s news
Rang my mother for a chat but she hung up on me to hear Bertie give a funeral oration at CJ‘s obsequies. She got back to me quickly. She felt it lacked grandeur as Bertie cannot pronounce his ths (a fatally common Irish failing – do you wonder why I had years of elocution classes? Wonder no longer). I am as shocked that he has died as I was the day I heard Margaret Thatcher was deposed. I thought that he would go on forever.
In other news, the Dutch Mama has sent me an email containing this line:
“Our Austrian friend is coming to visit on Sunday with her twin baby boys…about a month old now and (I’ve been so looking forward to telling you this) sleeping through the night!! “Mr. Waffle says that travel often upsets small children. Let us hope for the best.
Infrastructure
Since my sister moved to India, Mr. Waffle has developed an interest in matters Indian and he keeps plying me with information. Apparently it takes 8 days to get something by road from Bombay to Calcutta. This is, as I pointed out to him, 6 days less than the time it takes Aubert to get a buggy from its depot in Brussels to its shop in Brussels.You may rejoice, should you so wish, our swish new buggy has finally arrived.
