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As tough as the tour schedule is for a few weeks, it’s not like the old days when I would do 13 or 14 straight days away from home and most weeks I have at least a couple of days with the family to make up for the time away. Today we drove down to Epsom to see some family friends for lunch. My daughter enjoyed being the centre of attention in a big group of people and having a new house to explore. She continues to be a fearless explorer, trying to get into every hole that is a little bit bigger than her and shoot up any stairs she sees. And it’s a mixture of crawling and furniture surfing walking now and I’d say she was only a matter of weeks, if not days from having the confidence to go everywhere upright. She’s able to do five or six steps now as long as there’s someone to catch her or somewhere to land.
And she’s communicating in her own way too. My favourite is when I stop playing her Little Baby Bum videos (which she loves) and she looks at the screen for a second and starts to tunelessly sing. As if her voice will conjure the nursery rhymes back.
We’re sharing jokes and teaming up a bit too in naughtiness and I think we’re going to be a terrible force for awful comedy for a few years. My poor wife. Phoebe does look quite a bit like me now and sometimes I forget she isn’t just a tiny clone version of myself that I have created for mischief. And sometimes I remember that that’s pretty much what she is.
The family we were visiting had a fish tank in the wall and Phoebe loved watching the creatures swimming about. And of course, the fact that she’s so entranced and observant makes me much more aware of stuff too. I really looked at the fish and the sea insects and coral much closer than I usually would.
I was exhausted as I usually am after returning from being on the road but I didn’t know these people well enough to have a nap on their sofa. And though I intended to have an early night and we were in bed by 8 (oh what has parenthood done to me) my brain decided not to play ball and with my daughter happily sleeping in her cot and barely stirring I lay awake for hours, then slept for half an hour and then woke up again. I am very mildly ill and run down, but this was so frustrating. To want to sleep and to have the opportunity to catch up and refresh myself before the next run of the tour (Weds- Chorley (nearly sold out) Thursday Lincoln, Friday Wolverhampton and Saturday Reading (sold out)) and not being able to do so, because of a whirring brain and then (for the first time in months) waking up from a dream in some kind of panic, but not knowing what the panic was, which made the panic worse, suddenly aware that I am a microbe clinging to a rock flying through space that could be flicked off (and not in a good way) at any minute and not the immortal super being destined for infinite happiness that I sometimes convince myself I am when it’s not 3.30 am. All my mistakes, all my missed opportunities and the terror of losing the great things that I have and missing out on the great things that I don’t have.
A glass of water and a Lemsip max and half an hour to get my mind straight and I felt less afraid. Though it took an hour to get to sleep even after that. And then half an hour later I was woken by my daughter standing in her cot and laughing at me and babbling at me in baby language, ready for the day to start. And even though I wasn’t ready that laugh is enough to get me up and at em.
But annoying to lose a night of sleep to my stupid brain when the baby is well and sleeping like a baby (the type of baby that sleeps all night). Maybe it’s good to remember that you’re a microbe whose life is finite and fragile every now and again. Let’s start this day as if it’s the last and enjoy it. I can sleep after I am flicked off (works in both senses).
