So far today, the witchling has slept for a massive hour and twenty minutes. She woke up at about 6.45, having spent the hour or so from four until five wide awake and not wanting to settle; this, we think, is because she spent about six hours of yesterday, as in during the day, asleep, which is most unusual for her, despite being what all the bastard literature tells one one’s baby needs at this age. Two two- to three-hour naps, they say, helpfully. My arse, I reply, ruefully. She is now grumpy, surprisingly, but doesn’t want to go to sleep – we have just had a forty-five minute debate about whether or not she should be asleep, ending in my bringing her back downstairs again. It is now too late to take her out for a walk as we are awaiting a delivery between four and six, and she has pretty much missed the nap boat, as far as I can see.

This morning, we went to see a cranio-whatsit practitioner up the road. It is really quite expensive. I am bloody hoping it helps. I had thought it was doing – we saw him for an initial assessment last Thursday, and the witchling slept more for the following three days, even managing a four-hour stint one night, which is virtually unheard of these days. However, today, while she has been reasonably even-tempered, she is just not having any of this ‘sleeping for more than an hour in one go’ malarky, and remains obdurate to the bitter (in my case) end.

Sometimes, this is quite hard work, you know.

Anyway, let us all keep our lovely little fingers crossed very firmly about the cranio chap. God knows, I can’t think of much else to try, though I am considering the dairy connection, or possible lack thereof, in my spare moments (because of course, in between baby-wrangling, PhD-correction-doing, DIY advising, and ordinary household bollocks and whatnot, I am overwhelmed with free time. Oh yes.). As you may have gathered, I am not my usual sunny self today (!). I am quite worried about getting my sodding, sodding PhD corrections done in time; I have until December 17 if I want to make the winter graduation, and if I miss that, I’m looking at next July. At the moment, I am still wading through the minor corrections my external examiner has picked up – this is both long-winded and VERY FUCKING ANNOYING, because, as a gender specialist, she has told me, amongst many, many other things, to change every instance of ‘man’ to ‘person’. So, one cannot now say ‘the importance of something to mankind’. No. One has instead to say something like ‘humankind’. BECAUSE WE’RE ALL SO FUCKING PARANOID ABOUT OUR GENDERS, dammit. It pisses me off. Also, her first language is not English, and she is asking me to change a few things from being GOOD ENGLISH to BAD. This rankles slightly. Am I hiding it well? Yes? Oh good. I thought so.

This self-indulgent rant brought to you courtesy of lost child benefit reference numbers, a reduction in caffeine, and four hours’ sleep last night.

Thankyouverymuch – I’m here all week.