And it goes a little something like this...

• 2am: Baby wakes. I get up, replace dummy, stumble back to bed.
• 4am: Baby wakes. I nudge the husband. He gets up, replaces dummy, stumbles back to bed.
• 6am: Am paralysed by notion that this is my last hour of sleep. Therefore cannot sleep. Every snuffle from the baby makes me more awake. Lift pillows, leave room and crawl in beside the boy while trying to make sure I wake up before the alarm so that it doesn't wake the baby.
• 7ish: Get up as I'm physically, if not mentally, now wide awake.
• 7.30ish: Get the boy up and start the morning "Please, please, please just get ready for school routine" while hubby feeds the baby and does early morning nappy duty (which usually saves me from the first poop of the day).
• 8.30: Leave house for school run. Takes too long. Get wet in inevitable 9am downpour. You could set your watch by it.
• 9.15: Get home, clean - bottles, washing, hoovering (baby is napping at this stage... I envy her).
• 10.15: Sit down to write.
• 10.20am: Baby wakes up. Needs fed. And changed. And entertained. And encouraged to sit upright and learn new skills.
• 12noon: Baby becomes tired and cranky but it's too close to lunchtime for her to give into sleep without being fed so I dole out some home cooked mush and heat it, hoping she won't turn her little cute nose up at it or move her head in such a manner that her nose is blocked with all the mush.
• 12.45pm Clean mush out of screaming baby's nose.
• 1pm: Try to convince over tired baby to GO TO SLEEP!
• 1.15pm: Sit down to write.
• 1.20pm: Start fielding calls from family members wanting to order a taxi from Claire's Taxis/
• 2.30pm: Baby wakes, taxi gets loaded, messages are done.
• 5pm: Load baby with more mush - and toast, which I then have to pick up in soggy lumps from around her high chair. Then go and collect the boy and do his homework and make sure he is fed - not mush, thankfully.
• 7pm: Try to encourage the husband to take break from work to help with the tag-team bed/ bath routine. Start to feel twitchy and crave some wine.
• 8pm. The Girl sleeps!
• 8.30pm: Read 'The Wobbly Jelly Hunt' for the 25000 time... and then the boy sleeps.
• 8.55pm: Dishes, washing, hoovering, packing lunches, ironing school uniform.
• 9.45pm: Sit down to write. Remember have not actually eaten anything since lunch time. Too tired to cook so eat unhealthy chocolatey thingummy. Write 6 words. Pat self on back. Collapse in coma.