Exploding Mums

Bed time was, to put it mildly, totally and absolutely disastrous.  Thing One was enjoying his reading book from school about an exploding mum, which to a seven year old boy is stupendously funny.  Unfortunately Thing Two found it alarmingly horrific and the tears came in floods despite usually having the grimmest and most morbid humour out of the lot of us, which is saying a lot.  She really is a macabre little madame, usually.

Needless to say overtiredness played a key part in that.  I know, I know 'overtiredness' is the excuse of a bad parent, we all know the scenarios, you get some vile child shaving a cats tail with a cut throat whilst punching their newborn sibling and their valiumed to the max mum chirrups 'oh dear, poor Maxy waxy is awfully wawfully tired aren't you darling' tutting endearingly whilst mock whispering to you 'it's awful when they get over tired isn't it?' when said little darling replies with an expletive two word sentence that ends in off and you end up biting your tongue rather then issuing the reply 'if he's so effing tired, why isn't he in bed?'

Despite me providing the context of the exploding mum (in the book the mum was pregnant and so large the boy thought surely she will explode) and reassuring her that mums don't really explode (unless you really piss us off) she declared she couldn't possibly sleep.  Bare in mind The Toddler breastfeeds to sleep and I have to stay in bed with him, even after he's asleep so we had The Toddler working through being tired into hyper manic woo-hooooo overtired (oops, see....i did it again) state whilst I tried to settle Thing Two.  The Husband had tried to settle her first however, she is declaring with increasing frequency as of late that  she 'doesn't like Dad' and 'loves mum more' which makes my internal audience whoop and cheer and the child in me want to poke my tongue out at The Husband (I know I know, although for the record, I never once claimed to be mature) The Husband in lacking in the sympathy gene and tries to totally rationalise away the triggers with good old common sense, distract them then failing that berate the upset out of them which just upsets Thing Two all the more not to mention, like myself, she finds his beard (that I affectionately name 'the roadkill') repulsive.

Thing Two, like myself, is a thinker.  She dwells on negatives despite us providing her with many positive paths of thought to think about.  She bemoaned midst sob that even when she doesn't talk about stuff out loud, she still talks about it in her head and she can't make that shut up and that even when she tries to think of something else she ends up talking about both in her head.  Boy am I glad I'm not a 5 year old.

We then had a fresh round of wailing because when The Toddler is older, the plan is to have him share a room with Thing One and then The Husband will return after many years absence to the marital bed (though only if he has a shave) yet Thing Two was hoping she could move back into my room then and 'Daddy can have my room and paint it black'.  I mentioned that perhaps Daddy might want to share a room with Mummy to which she cried with full wibbling bottom lip and huge saucer wide soaking wet eyes 'that means I'll be the only person sleeping on my own and I don't want to sleep on my own!'

Argh.

See technically although The Toddler obviously loves both his siblings he rather prefers and likes Thing Two more then Thing One.  However, there are 3.5 years between Thing Two and The Toddler and an obvious gender difference versus 5.5 years between Thing One and The Toddler so it's swings and roundabouts with logistics in rooming.

By this point Thing Two has worked through the point of sleepy tiredness and is now in the dreaded realms of wide awake tiredness and is finding excuses for everything i.e I hand her some books to read and she declares she's read them all so many times they're boring.  The Toddler is at the gate going 'Mum. Mum. Mum' I can't sleep until he sleeps and he can't sleep until plugged into the boobs.  Thing Two point blank refuses any comfort from The Husband because 'he's not as nice as you mum'.

Satisfied that there is no more I can do and she's now treading along the line of simply being pesky and no longer actually upset I return to The Toddler and he Husband offers to lie with her then when refused, in a bout of desperation or perhaps mere exasperation he tells her in no uncertain terms to GO TO SLEEP, puts her duvet on and goes downstairs.  My heart broke as I heard her sob, yet within literally a minute it had stopped and was replaced by silence as she had infact, finally, gone to sleep.