I LOVE this time of year. The trick or treating round the houses, the run up to Christmas, the shopping, the extra hour in bed…
…but back to the year 2020 and a different reality.
It’s been one of those weeks where everything has been against me from the get-go. Monday morning. Lily wakes up crying. Early. Very early.
The usual routine of frantically playing find the dummy before the whimpering turns into a full blown melt down, in the dark, half asleep, while stubbing my toe on the bed post wasn’t the greatest start. Of course, I didn’t find it in time. In fact, I didn’t find it at all! I had to run downstairs and raid the dummy drawer which by this point meant that Lily and I were wide awake.
“Mummy?” asks Lily.
“Yes?” I reply.
“Can we go outside and play please?”
“No Lil, it’s still sleepy time.” I said.
The bottom lip starts to go.
“We can go out later when it gets light.” I said in haste hoping by some miracle she would nod her head, snuggle back into bed and fall back asleep.
HA!
“I wanna play outside Mummmmmmmy!” Lily whimpers.
“Ssssh Lil, you’ll wake Jamie. No it’s the middle of the night.” I whispered.
“NOOOOOO! I’M NOT SLEEPY MUUUUUMMY!” Lily roars.
“Hi Mummy!” Says Jamie.
Fox Ache.
Three coffees, two episodes of Peppa Pig and one melt down later over why Lily’s sunglasses won’t fit on Buzz Lightyear and it was only 6am. It was going to be a long day.
“Alexa? Play Emma’s playlist?” I called.
“You have no notifications today Emma”
“Alexa? Play Emma playlist!”
“You have no notifications today Emma”
Stupid, bloody thing.
“Alexa? Play songs by Ellie Golding.”
“Here’s a station you might like.. the smooth jazz collection on Amazon Music.”
Great, I was not only exhausted but my ears were now bleeding. Alexa is in obvious need of a reset, as I do!
So we made it to lunchtime and even though Lily was exhausted, I wanted to keep her going until her usual nap time after lunch. My thinking was if I kept her to the usual routine, there might be more of a chance of her sleeping that evening. And after the usual dispute over who was going to get the Peppa Pig spoon to eat their yoghurt, I was more than ready to put Lily down to bed and have relative peace restored for an hour or two.
“Night night Lil, love you.” I said while I kissed Lily and tucked her into bed.
“Night night Mummy!” She replies a wee bit too brightly.
Mmmm. I grabbed my phone and went to ring James. Nothing. It didn’t even ring and full signal. Strange. Facebook working, WhatsApp and emails are going good. I switched it off and back on again. A fail safe trick to fixing everything!
Three minutes later..
“JAAAAAAAMIE! Where’s Forky?” Shouts Lily from upstairs.
Fox ache.
I ran upstairs and into Lily’s room. No Lily. Into Jamie’s room and there she is rummaging through Jamie’s toy box.
“Lily! Get into your own room and into bed now.” I said.
“Aaaaaw Mummy, I want to play.” Lily says defiantly.
“Lily, it’s sleepy time.” I said while lifting her into bed.
“Awwwww.” Replies Lily. I shut the door, head back downstairs and put the kettle on and grabbed my phone to ring James. Nothing again. Uuuuuuugh!
Five minutes later..
“JAAAAAAAAMIE!” Screams the voice from above. And you get the idea.
Several trips up and down the stairs, some crying and a meltdown later, (and that’s just me!) there was silence from the top of the stairs. I crept up and into Lily’s room, frightened to even breath at the risk of disturbing her but she was out cold and snoring away, cuddled into her bunny. Woo hoo!
That evening after Daddy got home, we had dinner and James had said he had tried ringing me a few times today but it wouldn’t connect. I showed James the phone and it had full signal.
“Did you switch it off and on again?” James asked.
“Yeah, but it’s still not letting me ring or send messages.” I replied. “I’ll get in touch with Vodafone and see if it’s a network issue after the kids go to bed.”
8pm – Live chat begins with Vodafone.
9.45pm – Several updates, switching the phone on and off and resets later and still I’m unable to make calls etc.
Lily starts to cry.
“I’ll go.” James says.
11pm – Still on the live chat with Vodafone but with Lily on my knee at this point, with no intention of going to sleep.
“At this point Emma, I would have to say that this seems to be an issue with your iPhone and not Vodafone. You will need to get hold of Apple support. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
I felt like writing, well if you can knock a two-year-old out to sleep, then no, there’s not much else you can do for me. Great! Three hours and no further forward and still no working phone.
Midnight. And Lily conks out. Not so bad…
4.30am – “Hi Mummy!” Says Lily at the side of my bed.
The following day pretty much panned out the same way. The only difference being I spent 4 hours on the live chat with Apple support. Only to be told that the iPhone that James bought me exactly 12 months and 13 days ago will need to be sent away to be fixed and will cost me £350 in repairs! With my patience running thin and being exhausted from having an approximately 7 hours sleep in 3 days, you can only imagine the abuse the customer service guy got when he made the mistake of telling me that my phone had a 12 month warranty and if this happened 13 days ago, then the repairs would have been free! WTF.. Cue Mummy meltdown.
And then we reach Friday. We made progress yesterday with Lily, even though the day itself was a nightmare with tiredness and whinging. I decided to scrap the daytime nap altogether and see if she would sleep right through the night. And woo hoo! Success! I got more sleep in one night than I did the rest of the week. It’s early days but it looks like it’s bye bye daytime naps which I’m a little bit sad at. Not only did it give me a bit of time alone with Jamie and the opportunity to get jobs done, my baby is growing up.
And with the extra sleep, I was able to take on the days a bit better. Including my printer deciding to pack in.
“What’s wrong with the printer?” James asked.
“Aww I don’t know, it’s not connecting wirelessly or something. I’m ready to throw it out the window!” I said totally frustrated. “I think I can fix that and Alexa but my phone has given up altogether.”
“Maybe Apple will ring you back and offer the repairs for free after you lost it with their customer service rep.” James said.
“Yeah, and maybe Peppa Pig will fly past the window!” I replied, reaching for Mummy’s juice…
