I'm going slightly mad

I just logged on to post an example of how sleep deprived I am and almost forgot about Alice's birthday cake in the process.  I could have posted a picture of a smoking Dora cake as an illustration and saved you all the tedium of reading the below.  Still, this is a period of our lives that will pass (thank goodness) and deserves capture alongside the good bits.

Yesterday was a particularly bad day.  Juliet woke at 3am after the thundering rain necessitated us shutting the window, which sent a pile of Alice's birthday presents thundering to the floor.  It's a big pile.  It was a big noise.  Not her fault, but she wouldn't resettle as she usually does.  Stu offered tender loving comfort: "Stop moaning, you got lucky with Alice", so I stomped off to the living room to feed her and caught up on Gossip Girl in the meantime.  Stu appeared at 4am to find me engrossed, Juliet asleep and Chuck and Blair reunited. 

Despite the broken night, we all set off early to see our names in lights on the Australian Museum.  It's a Sydney Festival thing and somehow in the 24 hour rotation of people's names in lights on the side of the building, we had the convenient slot of 09.40am.  On a Wednesday, so Alice was free to join us.  Perfect.  Unfortunately, I had missed an 09 in reading the email and our 15 seconds of fame was at 09:09:40 so despite being in front of the museum in the car at that point, we didn't look up at the crucial second.  Perhaps I'll post the picture of Mum and Alice in front of someone else's name for posterity.

We had a lovely morning at the museum anyway.  Alice and Nanna stayed on to see the dinosaur exhibit and Juliet and I went on home (me feeling slightly jaded from shouting at Alice not to touch a priceless fossil only to find that the curator swooping on us was actually swooping on me to let me know she could touch whatever she liked). 

By the time the dinosaur fans returned home, I was feeling refreshed and together.  Dinner was in the slow cooker; the house was tidy and I had my much needed daily nap.  Juliet was pretty grumpy, but we put that down to it being close to bedtime.  She got grumpier and the more she cried, the more tingly I felt.  Finally, with my baby and body screaming at me, I realised, at around 6pm, that her 5pm feed had been completley overlooked.  Oops.  She cheered up considerably when this was remedied.

Off I went to a friend's house for a little soiree, which degenerated into 7 women who have recently had babies reminiscing about childbirth.  Why can't we ever let that subject lie?!  The conversation at least left me with the happy memory of my only whole night's sleep in the past 6 months or so - when I went in to be induced with Juliet and they gave me a sleeping tablet.  Anyway, I had to leave all the fun as soon as was seemly because I'd forgotten to take my antihistamine and so I couldn't endure the cat.

With my brain as mush and evidence of this at every turn, it wasn't a great day.  It wasn't a wholly atypical day either.  I'm wondering if I really should be operating heavy machinery in the form of a big black 4x4.

Surely Juliet will sleep through one night soon........................................................please?!