"Sleepytime Has Come For My Baby"

"Sleepytime Has Come For My Baby" was one of five lullabies that I always had to sing to J when he was younger, before he would even deign to try to go to sleep. The others were "Hush Little Baby", "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", "Close Your Eyes My Baby" and .... ach, I can't remember what the last one was now. He was never fussy about what order they had to be sung in, as long as all five were sung.

I can't recall how or when or why the lullaby singing stopped, but it did, inevitably.

I used to read to him every night after the lullabies ceased but that petered out too - he became more and more disinterested in reading as he grew up. I have never read any of the Harry Potter series, nor watched the films because I was waiting to read them together with J when I felt he was old enough to appreciate them, so we could experience them together. I thought we would read the first book and then watch the film, then move on to the second book and then watch that film and so on. I did try to read the first book with him - but never got past the first chapter for he would always fall asleep halfway through it, so I gave up and to this day I still haven't read a Harry Potter book or seen a Harry Potter film.

J is like me - a night owl. He can't get to sleep early so stays up late in his bedroom, but will be quiet as a mouse. Then morning comes and it's a struggle if he has to get up for school or if we need to get going somewhere. These holidays he has taken to sneaking downstairs after his Dad has gone to bed, for he knows that I will almost always still be up. He'll have a bowl of cereal and watch something that he's taped on the SKY planner, and I know that there are probably many parents round who are going to think that I am a lax mother but the fact is that he is a healthy and content child, and more than that - I was exactly the same when I was his age and it's done me no harm. Admittedly, I would stay up past midnight most holiday nights reading Enid Blyton under the covers, and I think that if Chris Tarrant asked J the million pound question "Who is Enid Blyton?", then J would be going home with £50,000, but I would be a hypocrite if I started to wag the finger and give him a hard time in order to get him to go to sleep earlier.

Tonight, or rather last night, he crept down after Ken had retired for the night. I was doing stuff on the PC in the study, so he settled himself on the sofa and I could hear him watching cartoons through the open doors separating our neighbouring rooms. When I'd finished after midnight, I went through to find him out for the count on the sofa. He wasn't for wakening that's for sure. Took some photos of him for the hell of it then pulled him up into a position from which I could hoist him into a fireman's lift to carry him upstairs to his bedroom. It was hard work balancing him (not least because we'd had Nick and Callie for dinner last night and so we'd had a few drinks and a very boozy trifle saturated with Limoncello) and I banged J's head hard on not one, but two, doors on my way. Still, he didn't wake up though, despite the huge thumps. Getting up the stairs was a bit of a challenge - maintaining the necessary momentum whilst being a fulcrum really for the pivot that was J about my shoulders. We made it safely though.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say by choosing this photo for today - maybe that life is swift? One day you're singing lullabies to your children and before you know it, the next thing is that they're choosing their own lifestyles. But love and support will always be available to them whenever they need it. I just wonder if, in six years time or so, I'll sometimes have to cart a vomiting, havering, flailing youth to his bed!