Half past two, and because of you, I haven't slept a wink

When I was first pregnant, my sister-in-law told me that I'd never sleep through the night again. She may have been right.

At three in the morning, every morning, I am wide awake. Poised to leap, gazelle-like, from one bed to another, proffering solace here, laying on hands there. My sonar is highly attuned, alert to the smallest pre-waking mumble, the creak of a bed being sat up in, the cough of a child who is no longer sleeping through it.

At six, every morning, I am an inert blob, deep in slumber and heavily invested in dreams of taking buses from one vaguely recognised part of a city to another, or having to walk all the way home from Sandycove in the dark, or other things that rarely involve the care and feeding of small people. I think my dreams are trying to reclaim the me that's just me, before I get up and become the me that's such a seemingly vital part of everyone else, again.

[The title is from a great song by an Irish band called The Stunning. Very early-90s. Very not Nirvana. You can hear it here.]