yes hello, i am the girl who fell asleep last night at 6pm. who meant to blog but the mattress wouldn’t let me move.

had a small moral dilemma last night: after a three way consultation that did not involve the underpaid mummy mediator, the babies declared themselves ready for the day at 2.30am. they declared this loudly.

i KNOW in my heart of hearts that they were not hungry (having witnessed the dinners they consumed…fish pie, their favourite, followed by yoghurt, cheese and grapes), and that if left alone, they would stop crying and commence sleeping. and sebastian would not stir, of that i was also certain.

while this crying to sleep plan worked when the babies were accustimising themselves to the 15 hour time difference in canada, back in hong kong it isn’t so easy. why? because we are in a flat and we have neighbours below us.

i had to get the wailing triumverate out of bed because i knew my neighbours (who sleep in the room directly below jj, sela, carys and sebastian) were sleeping. or trying to. as one does at 2.30am on a thursday morning. it would shut them up in the short term, but not in the long run. however, i had to, so i did.

the babies played around for what seemed to be forever and i didn’t feed them. while travelling we got into the habit of throwing  biscuits at them whenever they began whinging, and they definitely are in need of more variety in their diets. but i refrained from cheese cubes, grapes, carrots, and all the other finger foods.

i have often wondered why sela sucks her thumb. carys did for a bit, but no longer does. she rests her thumb outside her mouth when going to sleep, but the thumb doesn’t touch the mouth. whereas sela, with her voraciousness, consumes the thumb. but last night i learned again that God is the fine tuner of details. at 4am sela was walking around, and she put her thumb in her mouth.

sela only puts her thumb in her mouth when she is tired.

it was 4am but even i could apply the nearly forgotten philosophy 205 class..

sela only puts her thumb in her mouth when she is tired

her thumb is in her mouth

she must be tired.

so i picked her up and threw her into bed.

she did not cry.

i followed with carys and jasper.

they cried.

but only for two minutes.

sebastian slept through the night and woke up this morning declaring that he wasn’t tired and hadn’t had breakfast. he ate cheerios on the terrace with his mummy and daddy, then we prayed for the new school year and he got dressed in his uniform. unforunately, the bus company gave us the wrong information, and we arrived downstairs camera in hand to find the bus had been waiting for five minutes. not a great start to the year? who cares. sebastian had a wonderful first day and that is what counts.

i didn’t cry, but i did have to swallow a few times when i went downstairs to pick him up and saw him mouthing the words "hi mummy!" as our eyes met. the great big smile on his face. i am a far second in his affections to daddy, but he is showing his love for me. little man.

finally…a few months ago we occasionally were calling carys "blue blue" because of her eyes. that was shortened to lulu, which we still occasionally call her. we stopped because two ladies told me that it wasn’t a great nickname because lulu has no resemblance to carys’ name.

did the duke resemble john wayne’s name?