Sleep deprivation and bruising

Sleeping with the toddler was an overnight experience of duvet empire-building that Victoria would have been proud of. It was won by a cart wheeling toddler marking out a perimeter that left parents in danger of getting out on the wrong side of the bed too early and indeed by the previously un-used technique of falling.

Actually I lie, we never fell, we tottered and under a REM induced feats of balance survived on the mattress rim like a circus artist without a clown to laugh at us. Thank God that the sleeping brain has power to awake the dozing mind that the ribbon of the mattress was what was left of my bed-time empire by early morning. Toddlers should not sleep with parents.

The Teenager should not sleep with Pa either. But in a time warp chasm in the facric of the Pryce universe, time has reverted. Due to painting bedroom, partners have changed. By some luck of being too old to argue anymore, the boy and me share a bed.

Ok it sounded sensible at supper-time. It was a logical conclusion, it was fair play, it was family, it was a mistake that the diamonds of time will convert into sand.

Ok he did not like it. I did not like it but it was the sensible option at suppertime. An hour is a long time in parenting and eight hours is a lifetime.

Minutes to midnight the cartwheeler has returned but he is bionic now, he is elongated, he has muscles that have been trained on a school football field. The sleeping brain may be marvelous but a cantilvered kick by giraffe boy is catapulting me to another space-time-continuum. This is not empire building by nudges but a fully trumped up charge at the paternal defences. Hobbit foot is leaving more than a duvet trapped gaseous carbon footprint, he is leaving a bruising footprint on the Pa Pryce butt.

His married life may involve some bruising for a poor soul.