The Witching Hour!

The first chapter in ‘The BFG’ by Roald Dhal is called ‘The Witching Hour’ and it really stuck in my mind after reading it as a child. It’s that time in the middle of the night when sleep won’t come and you just lie awake thinking and worrying… It’s not a good time of day!

I know technically the witching hour is supposed to be mid night but I always think 4am is a far better candidate for the title!

4 am is a time when no one should be awake! It’s neither early enough to get up for the day and for even the dirtiest stop out I would say it’s far too late to still be up from the night before! 3am = an acceptable time to go to bed, if the party has been really good! 5am = a just about acceptable time to get up, if the baby really WON’T go back to sleep! but that time in between, I’d say from 3.59 to 4.59, it’s definitely witchy as far as I’m concerned and the time I am always most annoyed if I am awake at.

I often am though… Jimmy will wake up for a feed around 3 these days and happily and milk drunkenly fall back asleep while Florence and Jonny are none the wiser. I however, wake up to feed and then it seems right now that I just can’t drift off again; I see a lot of the dreaded 4am witching hour at the moment!

Living in my part of London, I presume any part of London really, it’s a time I hear the foxes screaming. They scream! It’s the oddest noise and when they’re mating it’s absolutely horrendous! It’s also a time I think about all my worries, actually scrap that, it’s a time when I make up all sorts of worries I didn’t have before! It’s just a time when nobody should be awake!

I’ve never really understood the song by Beverley Craven, ‘Promise Me’. I, like the song but the lyrics ‘You light up another cigarette and I’ll pour the wine, it’s 4 o’clock in the morning and it’s starting to get light. Now I’m right where I wanna be, losing track of time and I wish that it was still last night’. How could anyone ever be ‘right where they wanna be’ in the witching hour of 4am if they’re awake!? Perhaps it’s just me but unless I’m going on holiday and a 4am eyes open has the promise of a sun drenched beach, a cocktail in hand and a fortnight of fun then I’m definitely NOT on board!

4am witching hour, please don’t keep darkening my door! I accept 5am. I don’t want to but it’s bearable. 4am, you really aren’t!

MY LIFE WITH 2!

So, perhaps it’s the summer sun rise getting earlier and earlier that makes Jimmy want to get up for the day at 5am but as I wrote in my post above, when he’s awake around 3 for a feed and then I can’t get back to sleep it’s becoming a bit of a headache! I am not sleeping well because by the time my body wants to go back to sleep it also seems to be around 5am just as he’s getting up? I’ve thought about black out blinds but I don’t really want to go down that route as I think it makes them become dependent on needing that level of darkness. I think I’m just going to have to accept the fact that my children (because Florence is never very far behind him) are early risers and don’t need lots of sleep!

Jimmy doesn’t really have a problem falling asleep! As you can see, he CAN be anytime, anywhere! 😉

I just need to find ways of relaxing enough to be able to drop back off myself. Or stop feeding him which Jonny has suggested but I am NOT into the idea – that’s another blog post! I find thinking about what I’d do with different amounts of lottery wins is a good way of relaxing back to sleep. My Mum does it too. What would we do with £10m, what about just £350k (ha, just!)… And one night I got up and had a cup of Zenbev, a natural sleep aid drink. Bit of a faff in the middle of the night but I don’t need help falling asleep at 9pm, so for me it was worth a shot! Tasted nice and it did feel relaxing to have a warm drink so perhaps that’s the key? Zenbev say if you don’t want a drink though, you can mix it with apple sauce. I only tried it once but I did drift off after so maybe I’ll try it again! I like the fact it’s all natural, I certainly couldn’t take a sleeping pill with my little ones. Actually, I wouldn’t want to go down that route even if I didn’t have children to look after!

Florence and Jimmy were little under the weather at the beginning of the week so we’ve had lots of cuddles and snuggles on the sofa. Florence likes to cuddle up and watch ‘Mummy films’ at the moment, so sweet! She just means she likes cuddling me while we watch something I like rather than Peppa Pig. No idea why but sure it won’t last so I’m enjoying television while I can!

Florence has also started talking with an East London accent for certain words like butterfly, party and little. She knows it’s not how she says those words usually but is enjoying the pretending. I’m trying very hard not to be like my Mum and Dad and correct her to remember her T’s. But, I’m failing as I’ve found myself doing it! It’s true what they say about turning into your Mum! And as she is experimenting with accents and enjoying the sounds of words and how they’re spelled, Jimmy is continuing to learn new words all the time! My favourite thing that he does right now is watching him deliberately touch something or go somewhere he knows he shouldn’t then wagging his own finger while saying ‘no, no, no’!

My little monkeys this week! Florence is also going through a stage of pulling a funny face for most pictures!

I took Jimmy to a local soft play centre called ‘Tumble In The Jungle’ this week and looking at the photos I realised they are really similar to ones I took the first time I took Florence to the same place.

They’re even wearing really similar clothes!

Jimmy really enjoyed it. We went with a little pal of his and went in the baby sensory room too. I took some nice pictures and have been playing around with different effects, this is one of my favourites!