Tuesday, 16th May 2006.

Muzak to soothe the savage beast

Joshua had a lovely play in his cot this morning.

It's such a shame that it was at half past three. I ought to be grateful as generally if he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night he won't go back down without a five-minute strop or some serious cuddling, or both. As it was, he seemed quite happy to romp around for a bit with Frank the monkey, and you live in hope that he'll eventually settle quietly, rather than getting cross about the prospect of having to go back to sleep.

Josh has an activity centre bolted to the far side of the cot (the side nearest the wall) and he will occasionally sit and swipe at it, pressing switches and moving dials and so forth. If his hand catches one large purple button we're all treated to a delightful rendition of 'London Bridge Is Falling Down', which sounds as if it's being performed on a ZX Spectrum. The problem is that if nudged in just the wrong way it has a tendency to stick.

I think I need to emphasise two things: one, that the cot is right next to our bed. Two, if you approach it at any time while he's in there awake, he thinks you're coming to get him out. And when he finds out you're not, he screams the house down until you either submit to his demands or he wears himself out and falls asleep again, whichever happens first. So it's an eternal dilemma - how long you can lie there in a drowsy stupor listening to something that sounds like it should be used as the 'hold' music on a 1970s phone service, hoping that by some miracle the switch will pop out of its own accord, before throwing in the towel and getting out of bed to fix the damn thing, and then enduring the screams of an indignant baby who's just realised you're not about to lift him out of his cot.

Tonight, I will in all likelihood be wearing earplugs.