A night without Otis...

On Saturday night, Oti had his first sleepover at Grandma and Poppy's place. It is difficult to put into words the way this made me feel. The upside, of course, was having a breather for the first time in almost 8 weeks. My life, for exactly 17 hours, did not revolve around the next feed, the next nappy, the next nap. I was a person again! A person I barely remember ever being. I drank champagne and pigged out on canapes, and chatted about things both trivial and serious with my best friends. I even managed to wash and blow dry my hair, paint my toe nails, and put on a dress! It was a relief for me to discover that, although things have changed immeasurably, they have also stayed the same.

Funnily enough, although I welcomed the respite, I found myself showing off his latest digital snaps and talking about him fairly incessantly (I'm sure I bored my friends to tears, but, being the wonderful women they are, they didn't say as much). Without him, I feel as if I am only half there. He's been with me for so long... Consciously, at least, since 28th April 2007, when I dipped a stick into a cup of wee and saw two pink lines appear. I feel a little lost without him.

I made the first call to Mum and Dad as soon as we arrived at the party. He'd been a bit teary when we'd left, and I just wanted to make sure Mum and Dad weren't tearing their hair out. It wasn't that I didn't trust in their ability to care for him — they are better at it than I am!! — it was more that I wanted them to like him. I knew they LOVED him, but I wanted them to really bond with him, to discover his little personality, his special quirks that Phil and I know so well and have grown to love. It made me so happy to hear Mum tell me over the phone the following morning, whilst we were speeding along, desperate to get back to him, that he had been "perfect". That he had given them lots of big, happy grins and giggles. I love that he makes her so happy. I feel that, in some ways, he is a gift that I have given to my parents. They can have that uncomplicated, untarnished, perfect love for him that is different to the love that parents have for their children.

OK, I know I said I didn't have to think about feeds, but what I DID have to keep in mind were my getting-harder-and-sorer-by-the-minute boobs. At around midnight, fairly full of Omni, I sat in the garden surrounded by the girls and expressed onto the grass. It was dark, people were drunk, and I didn't fancy locking myself away in a bathroom for 20 minutes. The indignities of motherhood!!

My favourite moment of the whole weekend was arriving back at Mum's the next day, picking up my little man, and cuddling him tight and long. I breathed him in, I drank in his yummy, familiar smell, and gazed into his curious, befuddled eyes. I felt like I was home.