Love hurts...

Ok. I’m back to tell my story. I haven’t much to say really. It is simply that every night for the last two weeks I have had a glimpse of what it must have felt like to be Aphrodite. In the paintings I mean, not her real life. And if you leave out the men. I am talking in sensual, emotional and devotional terms here, not sexual. Sorry, what I mean is that I now know how it feels to be lavished with adoring, caressing female attention from girls who simply cannot get enough of your body. Yes, I am talking about my daughters.

Since the girls started to sleep together our bedtime routine has evolved, or regressed, depending on your parenting point of view. I no longer meditate on Jemima’s floor while she falls asleep. Instead I lie down between them both and wait for them to fall asleep. I know that many parents - though probably not my blog readers - will be shocked that I still do this with my four and a half year old daughter. Especially back in the UK where most parents I know have perfected the art of a simple ‘Night night! See you in the morning’ bedtime routine.

And while that does sound rather nice and orderly – hmmm, there are nights I would kill for it actually - just think what I would miss out on? For as I lie there between my two sweet honey pies, I get to feel like the most loved and adored and deliciously juicy woman that ever graced the earth. On one side Bella breastfeeds, mmmming and aaaahing as she goes. While she feeds, her free arm is thrown across my body and she squishes and squeezes and squidges the flesh on my tummy in her hand. Hmm, actually this is very painful and something I could do without.

When I say: ‘Gently Bella!’, she pulls off the boob (ouch), sits bolt upright and starts to stroke Jemima’s and my hair. She thinks ‘gently’ means ‘stroke hair softly’. It is very sweet. Then she throws herself on top of me, buries her head in my belly and blows big, deep, sticky raspberries. She generally has a lot of fun at the expense of my bodily flesh.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Jemima is snuggled up whispering sweet somethings in my ear. “I love you Mummy. Let’s have a conversation”

“Ssssh, its bedtime. No talking”. Short and sharp. I try to be strict. Very business like. “Oh, I love you too”

Nowit is her turn to sit up, resting (read: digging) her elbow comfortably in my ribs. Owwww... every night!

“How much do you love me?”

Here we go. You all know that game, like the book: “How much do I love you?”? I love you as much as the sky, all the water in the sea ... Last week Jemima threw herself at me so violently I had a blood blister on my lip for a week. But I actually wanted a scar to remind me forever of the words she uttered just as her forehead came crashing onto my mouth “I love you as much as all the stars in the sky Mummy!”

A few bruises later things finally quieten down and at some stage, when their breathing becomes heavy and deep, I carefully disentangle myself from the mass of hair, limbs and lips that seem to be pinning me to the spot, shake out my pins and needles and sneak out like an excited child, “James! They’re asleep! We can eat chocolate!”. Other times though I just stay put and wallow in all that love for a while. Until my legs go dead.

Or until I get kicked out. Their loving doesn’t stop once they are asleep. At least three times before we go to bed I will hear one of them yelp in their sleep as a result of some smack, squash or kick. Once I found Bella up and awake, chatting very loudly, with some of her fingers inside Jemima’s nose, to get a good grip, and some of them inside Jemima’s eyes, how else could she prise them open? Jemima slept on, unaware. I have watched Bella roll on top of Jemima and stay there, the two of them continuing to snore gently to themselves. And the cushion boundaries stacked around their mattress never go high or far enough. One of them almost always ends up on the other side of the room, asleep on the cold tile floor with one leg flung up and resting in the cupboard. Perhaps cots and child seized beds are a good idea after all. But then there’d be no room for me.