Oh goddy goddy god. I am having one of those days. Last night, I got about three hours’ sleep, and today I find I have a splitting headache, very little patience, and an overwhelming sense of, well, overwhelmingness. You know how it is – the very times when you need the most strength are the times when you feel weakest, or something slightly less dramatic. See, the witchling has yet to hit that time when sleep is easy and straightforward. I wrote about this once previously, on my other blog, and lots of people suggested lots of things, which was lovely, but mostly, I just feel plagued by constant self-doubt. Am I doing things wrong? Is there something obvious which I’m missing, which, if corrected, would make for simple sleep, even if only for three hours at a time? Has something changed, other than the witchling’s age? When she was about eight weeks old, she was, I thought, beginning to get something of a pattern. C, who was very supportive with the witchling when we were staying with her and my father while the building work here at the witchery meant that it made more sense for us to jump ship temporarily, took the witchling in to sleep in their room for a few nights, bringing her in to me for feeding when she woke in the night; she settled reasonably easily, and soon woke only twice a night, once at two, and again at five. That is now a distant memory, as is sleep in blocks of more than, well, anything from forty-five minutes to two hours. And yes, I know there are lots of people out there for whom the leave-them-to-cry-or-they’ll-never-settle thing works, but for me, the crying, it is not worth it. All that happens is that she gets very distressed, and Quercus and I simply can’t stand it. It also takes far longer to settle her down again afterwards, and given that I am running on empty, sleep-wise, the idea of actually getting less sleep is quite scary. Anyway, this morning we went to see Cathy, a homeopath friend of mine, who has given us some pulsatilla and some camomilla to try with the witchling, and suggests that we move her cot, from being virtually attached to the side of the bed, into what will be her room. The witchery is so tiny that having both doors open would mean a certain degree of distance without any chance that I would miss a sound in the night, but perhaps a bit more space might help her to sleep for longer. I alternate between thinking that I am being hideously selfish (‘what did you expect? you’ve had a baby – live with it!’), and thinking that having more than three hours a night of sleep would help me to be more on the ball during the day, which could only be a good thing. Mostly, I cope surprisingly well, but three hours gets to be a bit of an uphill struggle after a bit, and more sleep would definitely not hurt her, I am thinking.

Ohhh.

Ramble, ramble.

In other news, my father remains, well, my father. We haven’t spoken again since his ‘aren’t I generous; I’m not after you right now’ call of the other day. I am trying to work out what to do longer-term about the way that I relate to him. I don’t want to pass on all this shit to the witchling. Part of me thinks it would be horrid for her not to have a relationship with him, but at the same time, a) he’s not going to come and visit any time soon because he is, of course, far too busy doing things with his new family to bother about us (and yes, I do know how bitter and twisted that sounds; sorry – blame the sleep deprivation, along with a certain degree of ‘but it’s true!’ness), and b) would she really be missing out, given the way that he has treated me? It’s a tricky one to call, and I don’t really seem to be able to make a decision.

In still other news, flapjack. Ohhh, flapjack – friend of my soul. That is what. This emotional bollocks is all well and good, but flapjack is clearly more important. As are pictures of the witchling in a hat wot I knitted her the other day; I will be posting these as soon as time permits, and, dear reader, feel free to make pleasingly flattering comments about how sweet she looks. Oh, and while I’m thinking vaguely about flapjack, I think what I shall do about the recipes I had posted on my last blog is to PDF the entries (so they’re not Google-able, or something), and post them here too. Or something. Does that make sense? I don’t want to lose the history I had built up in my previous incarnation, but I do want to keep the freedom of my new online home. Oh yes.