WHAT'S SLEEP?

This is the sweet little cat. He's sleeping on a feather cushion. He's shedding fur on an expensive mohair rug. He's letting you see two of the eleven tennis balls he has hidden behind his bed. What I can't show you or let you hear is the sight and sound of this mongrel moggie projectile vomiting cat bikkies and fur balls at 4 o'clock this morning.

I didn't get to sleep until after 3. One of those nights where nothing was comfortable and I tossed and turned but finally drifted off until that sound. I flew out of bed and opened the back door, hoping against hope that he'd make it. He was in the kitchen by now, hacking up the last fur piece so a quick look at the carpet in the lounge, all clear. Great, just the kitchen so I'll clean it up in the morning.

I go back to bed, drift off again but I need a pee. Stagger out of bed again. I never put a light on, it wakes me up too much. Bad luck this time as I put my foot squarely in the pile of regurgitated whiskettes just outside the toilet door. I can't tell you how happy I was to see it was only this when I did turn the light on, I mean it could have been a lot worse but not much. The creature has been down behind the couch all day where I can't reach him except with a 12 bore.

It's turned me off cooking for the day. I was going to make scones because I have a bottle of black cherry jam or fruit spread because it has no sugar in it. The brand is French, Charles Jacquin and I usually buy the rasberry but Safeway looks as though it's selling out the brand. I found the black cherry by chance when a little old lady (I'm a magnet for them) asked me to go to the bottom shelf for some Homebrand rubbish and there was a cache of Jacquin. These little old ladies will drive me to drink, if it's not something on the tenth shelf below the ceiling, it's something they want from the floor area. Usually I try to buy Australian but in this case Jacquin's is the best of the best. While I was on the floor Ron, I did make a quick check of the Rose's marmalade, no luck for you. Now I'm not making scones.

Tomorrow I am going to see Pirates courtesy of pissed sister who put the wrong number on the Tote ticket and got the daily double, again. She sees it as divine intervention and sends me off to loll around enjoying myself in Goldclass. So next payday I won't have to make one of those difficult decisions, food or frivolity.

I haven't forgotten the seriousness of the world either. A very big "Up Yours" to world renowned obstetrician Michel Odent who told a British conference that a caesarean section birth interferes with the natural production and release of the hormone oxytocin which helps a woman "fall in love" with her child. This jeopardises their chances of bonding with their babies.

Thank you for the guilt trip, you twerp. Not all of us elect to have caesarean births, sometimes it's an emergency and we get enough crap from midwives and other mothers without some bloke handing out another reason to cringe. I don't like babies, they might as well be alien creatures to me. I hate people who hand me one because they cry when they see me. My own bawled every time I looked at him. You couldn't have bonded us with superglue. I get along fine with teenagers. I even manage them as kids as soon as they can talk and use a knife and fork, up until then, forget the bonding. It had nothing to do with the Caesar, it would have been the same if I had spent the time pushing him out, some of us just don't bond with the little squawkers, so there Mr. Obstetrician.

I must be one of the weird mothers though, every year older he got, I loved him more. A kind of reverse bonding. What do men know!