“I like your room.,” Miss5 said to her mother. “It’s big. I think it should be your room and my room.”
One of daughters doesn’t like me much at the moment.
I’m pretty sure it started as a joke when I grew my moustache for Movember but Miss5 seems to have forgotten that somewhere along the line, and now she just knows I’m not Mummy.
Or maybe that’s it. Maybe she’s worked out where the real power lies around here and I’m surplus to her requirements.
Not that I mind. I certainly don’t want anyone thinking I’m seeking sympathy here or I’m seriously worried about my relationship with my daughter. They all go through it at one stage or another. It’s a bit of a laugh.
For me.
For Tracey it means more work because she’s the ‘go to’ person for everything for a while, regardless of the time of night.
Which is why I’ve been having much better sleeps than my dear wife lately.
“Are you serious?” Tracey asked me this morning. “You didn’t even know she was in the bed with us?”
“How would I?” When I say Miss5 won’t kiss me, I mean she won’t come near me. “It’s not like she slept between us.”
“Did you even know I got up to her? Or the others.”
Miss2 is even worse than Miss5 lately with her nighttime demands. Plus, just for kicks, Miss7 has been sleep walking.
It’s important to think before answering questions like, did I know my wife got out of bed during the night? A ‘yes’ would mean I lay in bed pretending to be asleep.
“No,” I lied.
“You’re getting up to her tonight,” Tracey told me.
“You know I’d get up to her every time,” I said. With lies, in for a penny, in for a pound. “If only she’d let me.”
It’s true.
The bit about Miss5 not letting me, not the bit about me happily getting up every time.
Last time I attempted to calm Miss5 down and get her back to sleep she screamed her way through the house with me shushing along behind her as she woke a few siblings on the short journey.
I reminded Tracey of this.
“No one wants that again,” I told her with as much genuine regret as I could feign.
So, from my point of view, everything has been going pretty sweetly these last couple of weeks.
But this morning things got a little more serious with Miss5 honing in on my spot in the bed beside Tracey.
To her credit, my wife came to my defense.
“I don’t think Daddy would like that.”
Which is what I was thinking, until Miss5 spoke again.
“That’s okay,” Miss5 assured her mother. “He can sleep in my bed. We won’t hear him once we shut the door.”
It took me only a moment to see the genius in this plan – I wouldn’t have to pretend to be asleep because I won’t hear her either.
“Dad doesn’t want to sleep in your bed,” continued Miss5. Bless her.
“He can have the top bunk then,” said Miss5.
“I don’t mind where I sleep,” I said to my wife. I quickly looked for an angle she might buy. “It’ll save you getting up every night.”
“You want to sleep in with the two year old?” Tracey asked me with a skeptical tone. Then she grinned in what I can only describe as an evil fashion. “Okay.”
What have I done?
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“Raising a family on little more than laughs”
