Nest Vacancy

F has started daycare. For the first time in I don't even know how long, I have a morning where I'm at home by myself with no particular tasks in hand.

Bliss! I can sleep in! I can read the internet without being handed toy planes! I lounge in my hammock on the balcony, drinking coffee in the autumn sun! (For it is immediately autumn here, the baking summer has disintegrated like the pony tails I attempt to put F into. Red berries on the trees outside and vast electrical storms have taken over) At last, a few short fragile hours of rest!

I go and hoover the bathroom.

Ah, how the mighty are fallen in the midst of battle. Routine is an inevitable doom, I suppose. Quickly I find that I can't sleep, because I'm too used to getting up and pottering round the house, doing my scattered version of housework. It's a lot easier and faster without F helping, so I can then sit and relax afterwards. Even then, I'm wondering what she's up to at Dagis and rather missing playing the pirate boat game with the kitchen sink from the dolls' house.

(That's where you tip it on its side and pretend it's a pirate boat, if you're wondering. The lookout smurf has to shout 'Look Out!' and point at the dangerous toy cars so you can sail round them. I feel there is a movie spin-off in it.)

Yesterday, V and I took F to see her dagis for the first time. It's a tiny one at the far end of Haga, just fifteen kids or so, but perfectly situated for us. And good for class sizes and adult attention and so on. F got out of the pram and ran enthusiastically away from us, waving bye bye with one hand as she started waving hej hej to the nearest boy.

We didn't see her for half an hour as we sat through the tour and intro talk. She popped her head round the door and smiled at us near the end. That didn't last. She bellowed like a wounded Brian Blessed when we told her it was time to go.

Funny - I'm bone weary at the moment. A few weeks back, I would have given my eyeteeth and thrown my eyes in as a sweetener for a morning off. But after year and a half of parental duty, I'm so inured to it that I can't quite switch off. Nothing that a bit of practice won't cure, I expect. I shall get on to that as soon as the dishwasher is empty and the smurfs are back in their pen.