Yawn

Bad night last night -- woken by one of the little darlings again and again, so I don't think I got any sleep after 5. They're usually pretty good at sleeping these days (though they were both terrible when younger) but last night was one of those when you are awake between 4 and 5, just the time when you are attacked by all sort of anxieties, worries and -- at least in my case -- get one or two words of a song stuck going round your mind. (Last night it was the first two lines of Respect by Erasure. Nice.) If you're awake then, you're likely not to have slept enough already to feel like surrendering and getting up. But you know that even if you do get back to sleep there is a fighting chance that you won't really feel much better when you do eventually have to get up. Sheer torture, in fact. (And sleep deprivation can indeed be a very effective means of torture, something any new parent would immediately recognise.)

I'm glad I hadn't read until now (from the ever useful Wikipedia) the effects of sleep deprivation, since I reckon we went through about two years of it. It's a wonder they let new parents drive, operate machinery, or do anything that requires any fine judgement at all, let alone care for young children.