“Let’s play dollies!” Molly declares, waving her Frozen dolls in my face. “You be Elsa and I be Anna!”
“Ok, let’s pretend they’re going to the park,” I say, bending my knees on the sofa to create a slide for them to go down, in an effort to keep my part in the game horizontal for at least a few more minutes.
“No, let’s go on the bouncy castle!” she cries, making Elsa jump vigorously up and down on my belly. “It’s nice and bouncy, Mummy!”
Ah, Sleep. My old friend. How have you been? I haven’t seen much of you lately and right now, I’m beginning to fear we might never get acquainted again! I remember all too well your cosiness. Sinking into the land of nod without a care in the world. No-one to disrupt us except perhaps a snoring husband after a few too many beers out with the lads. Ten. Blissful. Hours. Ah, yes Sleep. We were great friends back then. What happened?
“It’s time for your check up,” says Molly brandishing her Doc Mc Stuffin doctor’s kit. “Yes Mummy. It’s a crocodile,” she concludes as she listens intently, waving her ‘stetta-scoop’ over my basketball belly. “Now. We make it POP out. Here’s your medicine,” she says gleefully, shoving the sparkly pink dispenser in my mouth.
Ah, if only it were that easy! With less than two weeks to go until my so called D Day (14th June), the reality that what goes in must come out is dawning big time. Maybe this one will just pop out. Maybe the bean will be a little smaller than the 10 pound 8 ouncer Molly was. Maybe my labour will be half what it was. Maybe my body will bounce back a little more easily.
“Are you not cross now Mummy?” says Molly looking up at me with big eyes. “No, I’m not cross anymore,” I sigh after a particularly tiresome tantrum over the right to devour three more fairy cakes before eating lunch. “Ok. Good Mummy. Now…we eat more cake,” she says triumphantly, with a grin that has the power to dissolve any annoyance.
It’s just one of the examples of the recent battles lost or won that I look back on now and realise was not quite the molehill to mountain scenario my frayed nerves told me it was at the time. Tears have been cried over the last week and I’ll admit quite a few of them have been mine! My temper has been a little shorter – most likely due to the soaring hormones of my 37-week pregnancy and the fact that the urge to waddle to the bathroom is waking me up five times a night.
