Baby Radar

Why is it that settling down to quietly work at my desk has the same effect on my sleeping baby as a high-pitched siren? I settle Jake down for his afternoon nap. He snuggles into his soft toy. Turns his head to one side and drifts straight off to dreamland. At this point, if I go back to the living room, sit on the sofa and read or watch a movie, he will contentedly snooze for two hours. However, if I should dare to approach my computer with any thoughts of work, he seems to have some built-in warning system that has a vendetta against my using his nap-time as extra work-time!

A similar thing happens if I decide to put in a couple of "early bird" hours. Jake usually wakes around 6.00 am for a pre-breakfast breakfast, and then goes back off to sleep for another couple of hours - as long as I go back to bed that is. If I try to stay up with a mind to get a little in advance of my deadlines, Jake's mommas-not-concentrating-on-me radar goes off and he decides that he's had all the sleep he needs and loudly insists on getting up to start his day too! Even NASA hasn't an early warning device that's THIS sensitive.

This situation has resulted in my devising ways of pretending to go back to sleep and then sneaking out of the room on tip-toes like some kind of cartoon character - making sure I tread only on rugs and holding my breath in case I step on a creaking floorboard in error. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I wish I'd stayed in bed where at least I would be relaxing and not anticipating a morning with a grumpy baby who got up too soon! 

Consequently I seem to spend my professional life sprinting for each deadline instead of pacing myself like a long distance runner. I sometimes wonder if this is life's way of telling me I'll never make it as a writer - or whether it's the shark-infested waters I need to cross in order to reach the shores of success. At the moment I'm clinging to a life-raft in the water but the sharks are circling. Anyone who has ideas on how to deactivate Jake's radar system please email me!

Katie-Anne, 2001