The Bigger Picture Joyce HickeyI have bought a hairnet. It's not to keep my rollers in place.
Nor have I started work behind a food counter, though sometimes that reflects a day spent at home with two toddler boys.
It's to keep my few remaining strands of hair away from the grasp of Junior Infant, who started out life as a thumb-sucker, pulling the occasional wisp into his mouth to make his sleepy burrowing into my neck all the more contented.
Two years later, a simple ponytail doesn't thwart his efforts; he makes do with pulling the short bits around my temples.
A single donated hair doesn't satisfy him, as he has learned to grasp a chubby handful, stuff it in alongside his thumb, and pull it out by the roots. And if I am not around when he requests "essie" (etymology unknown), I have to ensure that my hairbrush is fully loaded and within easy reach.
His latest trick, as there are some teeth coming, is to start shouting during the night, or else he'll wake fully at 5am and want the entire household to get up and play.
The roaring often commences at around half past midnight, just as I fall into deep slumber. And so I pad across the landing and assume shushing soothing mummy mode. "Come on now, it's all right."
"No mummy, I want essie."
"Do you want to go to sleep?"
"Yes, want go sleeping."
"That's a great boy, come on and lie down again."
"No, in dare."
"Not in there, pet, that's mummy's bedroom, this is your bed."
"Dadeeee."
"Dad's asleep, luvvie, do you want to go to sleep in your bed?".
"Yes, my bed."
At this point I am doubled over the side of the cot, on tiptoe, a position that's too sore to sustain for more than a few minutes and which results in my pulling a muscle in my ribcage. Half of my former crowning glory is being pulled in the opposite direction, and because the bellowing has stopped temporarily I can hear each hair stretch, squeak and break.
Eventually, I manage to relax his grasp and tuck his bear in beside him, then beat a stealthy retreat, but the squeaky floorboards give me away. And after a few repeat performances, when at last he's had his final curtain call, I creep back to bed, frozen and wide awake.
And who's there? The "I'm nearly four" Elder Lemon, who has fled the battle zone for a quiet place to spend the night. So I squash into the three remaining square inches. "Move over please pet, let mum go to sleep."
"But I don't got any room, mummy, I want to sleep in the miggle."
"You are in the middle, in fact you are taking up almost the entire bed; tell you what, let's go to your bed for a snuggle - then mum
and dad can sleep in mum and dad's bed and you can sleep in your bed."
"No, mummy, I want to sleep in your bed."
At this stage, Dear Man stirs enough to say "Quiet now, let mummy go to sleep," - and then he does precisely that.
His intentions are sound, but unfortunately his offers to repatriate the interloper meet outright rejection: "No, I want mummy to give me a snuggle."
Dear Man goes so far as to request a dressing gown for his birthday. "No way," I say, "You're not my dad. Ask me again when you're 50."
"But if I had one," he says reasonably, "I could soothe the little fellow and give you a break and I wouldn't mind because I'd be warm."
"Oh. Right you are. Any particular colour? And would you like it tomorrow?"
This is more than compensated for in the mornings, though, when Dear early-bird Man rises first and is the source of all breakfast. "I want to go downstairs," says Elder Lemon.
"Dowstir," echoes Junior Infant, and suddenly they've all vanished and I am alone with five feet of duvet for an hour.
I've a horrible feeling this two-year-old is going to develop into that fellow in the film Love Actually who infuses a simple action with deep intention. Dancing with a long-desired colleague, he plays gently with a lock of her long brown hair. Dear God, I think aloud, please don't let him tell her she reminds him of his mother.
I haven't yet worn the hairnet. But I'm getting very attached to the dressing gown.
jhickey@irish-times.ie
Shalini Sinha is on leave