borrowed time

My child has started to not sleep at all at night.

A few weeks ago, he was sleeping through. The Brit and I were waking up somewhat refreshed.
Slowly but surely the little scamp has started to wake at 3am. Then it was 1am and 3am.
When he didn't wake up at those unforgivable times, I fucking started waking up then, expecting  him to wake up.

Fast forward to three days ago, when the Brit went to Germany for work. That's when Sebastian decided to open a can of I'm About To Ruin Your Shit and now he wakes up every hour on the hour.

Other mums are all, 'It's teething!' 'It's a growth spurt! 'It's the famous Four Month Regression!'(Famous? How come I don't know about that? And my son is 5.5 months, so does that still make it the Four Month Regression?)

Either way, I'm beyond catatonic. Beyond, because I've almost done a 360. I'm so tired, I'm hyperactive.
I know if I sit down and chill for one second, I'm going to fall asleep for eight months.

So I got up, put on my granny jersey woollen dressing gown (it's a phase), and sleepwalked my way around Clapham. I was proud of myself for managing to dress, brush my teeth and feed myself and him in a somnambulistic state.

I did, however, spread Marmite over my peanut-butter sandwich thinking it was jam.

I took Seb to the library for Rhyme & Story Time. While he listened intently to the songs, stories and general child chaos around him, I sat sleeping with my eyes open. Like all the other mummies in there.

I started to feel panicked and very sad last night. Even amongst the sleep deprivation, there's a blip that's surfaced on my horizon.

January. The cold, dark, hands-down worst month of the year is on my radar. It's coming. It's when I go back to work, and it's when I leave Seb.

It means I'll see my son from then on out maybe two or three hours, if I'm lucky, a day. It means I won't be able to go to Story Time or swimming with him anymore. I won't be able to take him for walks in the middle of the day, except on weekends. I'm hiring someone else to do this for me.

And already my heart is starting to break.

(Also, will I even be able to do my job anymore?)

I have little time left with him. Three and a half months. So even though he is perpetually driving me insane by keeping me awake, I am trying to savour every, single minute I have with him.

I will drag my body to every class or walk or appointment I have with him, despite how much we slept the night before, and I will enjoy it. Because I have only one chance to do these things with him. And I am now running on limited time.

PS: This time last year I was riddled with morning sickness. I was smashing fish fingers every supper time for seven weeks. It's the only thing I could stomach. It was also around this time that I found out that I was carrying twins....