I don’t have trouble falling asleep. Ever.

The days are so busy that by the time I fall into bed, I am exhausted.

Insomnia came to visit me when William died. Not at first, not in those first few, grief stricken months, when my body screamed "ENOUGH"! and shut itself down into blessed, dreamless sleep. It crept in slowly, with the nightmares and over the years has come for repeat visits like an unwanted relative, who doesn’t know when they have worn out their welcome.

Maybe I had too much coffee yesterday. Maybe but I don’t think so.

I went to bed at 10:30 and Ivy woke at 11:03 and for some reason I could not find sleep again. Even though it found Ivy at around 2am, it didn’t allow me the same courtesy. This (early) morning, sleep is not my friend. I spit in it’s general direction. It has forsaken me. Left my mind to run wild and my body to crave it like some illegal substance.

This wasn’t supposed to happen until I was old. Insomnia, isn’t it the disease of the aging?

Here I sit in the dark with my new constant companion, Laptop.  I’ve read the comments of my bloggy friends and sent a few off. I’ve pondered why my dogs are scratching themselves like mad when they were only bathed in flea shampoo and treated with Frontline yesterday. I’ve listened to the sounds of the sleep filled house and I have wished I were there, in sweet oblivious sleep.

I am going to pay for this come daybreak.

This has been on my wish list for a while. I love it. I want it. I need it.

Today we set about trying to find someone in Australia, ‘the lucky country’, who sells them.

Not so lucky, it seems. Nobody does.

Gutted am I. No toddler B - double for me.

Okay, breathe.

There are still four days to go, five until their party.

I’m not ready! I’m not ready! I’m not ready!

It’ll be okay. It will all come together. It always does.

You’re disorganised for a reason. It’s because you’re not ready for this, for them to turn two. For them to lose their baby faces, their chubby baby arms.

Why didn’t I feel this way when they were one?

It was such a whirlwind year, it literally was a blur. Do you actually remember their birthday last year?

I was definately more organised.

You need to see this for what it is. The end of your baby making. Never to have that squirming life within you, never to breathe in that earthiness of your newborn, look into their eyes for the first time. It is the end of a right of passage.

There is so much to do, to get ready. I haven’t wrapped presents, haven’t done party shopping, haven’t done anything much, just sat and watched them play, listened to them talking, babbling to one another, me.

You’ll be okay, you’ll get through this. It hurts, oh I know it does but there will be new passages to cross, new stages to take your mind away from losing your babies to the ever moving circle of life.

It only seems like yesterday that we welcomed them into our lives.

Yes but now it is time to move forward, enjoy the here and now.

Okay. Tomorrow. I will start fresh tomorrow. Tonight, I need to remember their tiny little fingers wrapped around my one clumsy pointer and my heart. I need to remember the journey we travelled to get to this point. Is that alright? Just one more night to think of them as my babies? Then I will throw myself head on into toddlerhood… and making cakes.