Chasing Butterflies.

Amy upon waking gets out of bed and promptly gets her knee stuck in her gate. Instead of being able to ignore her for a few more minutes, I’m forced to bound out of bed and save her. Isaac is awake too and happy to see me. I smile at him and drag myself back out into the lounge room. It’s only been 6 hours plus baby feeds since I was able to sleep and I’m not ready to be awake yet.

I pop the TV on and snuggle Amy on the couch. Isaac gets placed on the floor to play and I stumble back to bed. I kick Nathan with icy feet to get him out of bed. He had an early night, it’s his turn this morning. Grumbling he gets up and I hear a happy little girl shout ‘Daddy!’ before I fall back into sleep.

***

Amy is dumped on the bed.

Here, watch her and have a look at her mouth while I get a face washer.

Hmmph? What happened?

Don’t know. She was outside playing.

I blink sleep out of my eyes to see that Amy is covered in blood. She doesn’t seem upset or hurt. She sucks her bottom lip and I see where the blood is coming from; her lip is already swelling.

What happened kiddo?

I was outside playing. I go find Daddy.

Happily she jumps down off the bed, not a care in the world. I hear Nathan chasing her around the house, trying to watch her face. She isn’t hurt, just bleeding. I snuggle back down and sleep. Again.

***

Isaac is crying. I hear the pump running telling me Nathan is in the shower. I climb out of bed, my shoulder throbbing. Picking Isaac up, I sit down and feed him. He gulps at me hungrily, his eyes already starting to close in sleep. It’s only been 90 minutes since I kicked Nathan out of bed to do the morning shift.

Slowly Isaac finishes his feed. I wrap him and settle him in the pram. He falls asleep while I climb back into bed, loathe to be awake yet.

Sleepily I watch Nathan get dressed and start folding washing. I curl up and pull the blankets higher. Amy plays in the lounge room alone and I can hear her getting frustrated with the dog.

Seven! Come! Here! Now!

Nathan leaves and I remain, not sleepy anymore, just exhausted. Getting dressed seems like much too much effort and I try to count how many spoons it would take me to get dressed.

I climb out of bed anyway and dress slowly. Nathan has the pleasure of putting my socks on for me and brushing my hair.

***

I curl up in the chair and sip at my cup of tea. I’ve just finished the few emails I had left to do and my reader is empty for the first time in days. The sun shines, beckoning me.

***

Weeding the garden feels never ending. For each weed I pull, there appears to be two more just a little further on. Amy jumps on the trampoline as Isaac gurgles in his pram next to me. The sun shines for the first time in days. It’s warmth is very welcome.

I give up on the weeds and instead check for peas of a size to be eaten. Underneath, in the part I can’t easily get to, I find some. They’re sweet and I share them with Isaac. My lettuce is coming up and is almost large enough to be picked. My salad greens are starting to bolt to seed, so I sit in front of them picking the flowers out of their centres and eating them raw. I’m not ready to give up the greenery just yet. They can seed in a few weeks for me.

I pick my way through the garden and poke at the area that should have beans coming up. All the rain recently has done it good, even though it nearly sucked my soul out of my chest.

***

Coming inside, I sit down to write a blog post. Amy is outside playing when I hear the gate swing closed. The gate that should have been latched.

Looking out of the window I see her racing away across our paddock. I ditch the laptop and grab my shoes. Racing outside and through the gate she sees me and races away faster. The grass is thigh high on her and she’s not very fast.

I catch up to her as she tries to escape through the fruit trees.

Mummy! You come chase butterflies with me?

Laughing, we run through the grass chasing butterflies together.