There. I've just switched to betaBlogger.

It's 3:25 a.m. Why am I up and awake and switching to beta? I am up because my sweetie has a cold. When he's not snorting and snuffling, he's snoring outright, and when I give him a poke and make him roll over, his breathing - stentorian is always the word you see associated with breathing, and though I'm unclear on its precise meaning, I think it's what I'm after - his breathing is stentorian.

I am the auditory Princess and the Pea. I cannot sleep through noise. But, clever me, I have a little glass full of foam earplugs on the bedside table. Ear plugs are my friends.

Sadly, His Stentoricity penetrated the earplugs, which are, after all, only good to 473,492 decibels...

So downstairs I come, intending to read for a bit and try again when I'm really, really tired.

I'm really, really, reeeeeaaaaallllly tired now. So we are back to the question that we started with. Why am I up at three a.m.?

It was a noise, an odd noise. See? Ms. Auditory Me, at it again. Sort of an ululation. Or perhaps a moan. Not a nice one, a moan of distress. Wrong season for neighbourhood cats, and it's not that aggressive. No, a softish moan of misery. Ah. It's coming from downstairs, the room beneath my seat - my youngest daughter's in fact. The girl is in some distress.

Turns out the girl has to throw up but is too tired or perhaps ill to leave her bed. A dilemma, indeed. Good thing for her The Man was stentorian tonight.

Mummy provides the receptacle, rubs the back, gives tissue for the cleanup and water to rid the sour taste. Mummy cleans receptacle and returns it.

These days, when one of my kids is sick in the night, they tend to take care of it themselves. I don't tend to hear them (thanks be to ear plugs). However, having been there for the first hurlage, I'm committed. I can't leave the girl to suffer on her own. It's one thing to be oblivious; it's another to be wilfully absent.

There have been three repeats since. "There's nothing left to come uuuuup." Poor kid. We all know how wretched it is to retch on an empty stomach.

I am sympathetic, I am, but... All has been quiet for almost half an hour now.

I struggle with myself. Go to bed? Stay at the ready? Go to bed? Be an Attentive Mummy? Goooo to beeeeddd...

Shades of newborn parenting.

Should I sleep? She might need me yet.
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Can I sleep? She's quiet.
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Should I sleep? She could just be about to wake.
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Can I go to bed? Not a peep from the girl.
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*yaaaaaaawn...*
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Goodnight!

"Old age is no place for sissies." - Bette Davis

The indignities of aging. Last January I damaged a disk in my back. Had it happened when I was 24, I would now be fine. Sadly, it happened when I was 44. Thus, despite weeks of physiotherapy and semi-rigourous exercising, it still causes me discomfort. It stiffens in the night - I have to be careful how I roll over in bed, and in the first hour or so after I get up I'm positively creaky. I move like someone a couple of decades older in the first hour upon waking. Thereafter I'm fine, but that first hour?

This is all leading to a story, bear with me! Further background to the story is that ever since Daniel shot out of my body in less than an hour and a half, weighing in at close to ten pounds, I've had some, er, urinary incontinence at moments of particular stress. Charming, no?

Now, put those two together. You have a woman, fresh out of bed (which is probably an appealing image to some of you, but it will get less so very shortly). A woman, as I say, fresh out of bed. Her hair is tousled, her back is stiff, her bladder full. She eases off the bed and stands carefully, then walks toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. All seems well for our heroine, until, Oh, God, she feels a sneeze coming on.

Sneezes while upright are always bad news. She has long since learned the technique to avoid embarrassment: stand still, cross the ankles, and squeeze thighs together while leaning forward very slightly. If in public, omit the crossed ankles, but instead lean against a wall or a store front, oh, so casually. Just checking out the display. Casual, inconspicuous, natural, and immobile. She does not want to deal with the result should she be so foolhardy as to try to continue walking while sneezing. Not at all.

Thing is, first thing in the morning, her back is very sensitive, and sneezes hurt. Happily, her physiotherapist has taught her a technique which protects the back from the sudden knife-stab of a sneeze. What you do, see, when a sneeze threatens that tender back is to stand upright, feet hip-width apart, push your hands against the small of your back, bend your knees slightly and arch backwards, looking skyward.

But, oh, what do you do when you need to sneeze when your bladder is full AND your back hurts? Legs together or apart? Lean forward or back? Look up or down? Pee or pain?

I will go no further in my sad tale. I will simply sum up by saying that old age - even middle age - does not allow for the squeamishness of youth. A good percentage of maturity, I think, is brought about by the very pragmatic process of losing the physical prowess that even the most physically inept have in our youth. This steady and unavoidable loss brings humility, pragmatism, emotional sturdiness, creativity, and overall character strength in its wake, I think. Oh, and a sense of humour. Definitely with the humour.