Stormy Night

I didn't get much sleep last night. After a 10pm bedtime (recklessly late after a pretty sleepless night the night before too), I woke around 1.30am for a wee, the joys of pregnancy. I must not have tip-toed quietly enough, as the moment I crawled back into bed, Boy woke and required settling. After this I could not fall asleep, and kept thinking "roll on breastfeeding night feeds, full of hormones to make me fall asleep!" and trundled off downstairs to work on a post about my best and worst baby buys (being pregnant again and all). I also ate a chocolate muffin. The way I see it, it's too late to count as food I ate on Tuesday, and too early to be food I eat today, so no calories consumed whatsoever. Great! I wrote til 3am, strictly forcing myself to get some sleep, I reluctantly climbed in bed wide awake. I then started to get rather annoyed at the industrial estate at the back of our house for dropping beer barrels at this time! I mean, 3am! Quite unusual. Or a small explosion a few miles away (not uncommon when I was a child, I would have to reveal more than I wish about where I live if I told you why!) one or the other.

Then it dawned on me, it was a dry thunderstorm. The sky had turned a stunning stormy orange through the gap in my curtains, and I settled down to watch the show. I've always had a morbid fascination with storms, I am in awe of their powerful grace and beauty. The clouds rumbled on, like a dog's low growl at the back of it's throat before the kill. Lightning camera-flashed the sky, I often wonder if I have imagined the sudden light. As it wore on, I began to think the flashes were almost like circles of electricity from within my own tired eyes, it was very surreal, especially since I felt like the only person awake and watching.

The rain started. It poured in huge great drops against the open bedroom window, cooling down the tropical night. It abruptly stopped, and later started, many times, as though the person controlling the storm was filling up a jug at the sink, and the pouring it over us, only to have it run out and have to re-fill. At one point, HID stirred next to me, and I stroked his hair and told him it was only a storm, as though he was a child, and he drifted off. It got me thinking of how to explain a storm to a small, frightened child, as I will inevitably have to do soon, and thoughts of clouds bumping into each other filled my head. I was glad Boy's window was shut. He is yet too little to listen to rational explanations.

Then, oddly, out of the thunder and lightening and grey-orange skies, came the stark cry of a bird. The dawn chorus was beginning. And it struck me that being a bird is an all weather job, much like a postman. I listened for a while to the gorgeous birdsong backed by rumbling clouds and light flashes, enjoying the drama. Then I fell asleep to this lullaby, and woke thinking how lucky I was not to have missed it.



In other news, I feel I must mention and ask for a little help from all my lovely readers. A close friend of mine has recently found out that her daughter, the same age as my Boy, has a condition called development dysplasia of the hip (DDH). I don't know much about the condition, I have gathered from talking to her about it that her baby's hip was dislocated at birth, and this was missed/overlooked by doctors, causing her to grow without a proper ball/socket joint, which became apparent when she started walking. This will have to result in an operation to correct this when she is just two years old (how awful to think of) and wearing a cast, possibly from waist to both ankles, for four months, the poor thing. Below is a link to click on to sign a petition to ask the government to meet with the charity that helps children like like this, STEPS. They want to implement more screening at the time of birth so the condition can be quickly and easily treated, with no need for scary operations. Please, please take the few moments to click on this link and fill out your name and address (address kept private), for a lovely and happy little girl, who shouldn't have to be going through this awful trauma.
Please click here.