Adult Education 1
It's one thirty in the morning and I am awake. I am about to settle into what I hope is at least 3 hours of study. My cup of coffee (Starbucks' Viva instant coffee brand - no, it is NOT available in Lagos) sits on the table, steam swirling lazily from it. Without the coffee, my aspirations for tonight will never be realized.
I love the solitude and near silence of the wee hours - except that in the recent years, that silence is gone, shattered by the incessant "pepper-grinder" sounds of the "silent" generators in the neighbourhood - ours inclusive!. Our perennial "powerless" state makes the possession of a generator a necessity.
The night gives me the space I need, the sense of being alone and the time to sort through the jumble of my thoughts and ideas, dreams and aspirations, plans and hopes. And it also, usually means that neither husband nor kids are making any demands. Usually! Tonight, all of them chose to be awake AND demanding of my time and attention. My toddler, woken up by the cough that seems to be more a nocturnal thing, wakes her baby brother up by her crying (mind, she cries not because of the cough but because she wants to come sleep in Mummy's bed). Luckily, Daddy is awake, so he picks baby brother up, which upsets big sister who, though she loves her baby brother to bits does NOT see why she should share ANYTHING or PERSON that she believes are hers (and these days, that is about everything!). So, though we rock baby brother back to sleep, big sister starts crying again, in the fashion of toddlers - mouth wide open, voice raised to the highest possible pitch. Baby brother wakes up again and decides it is time to play with big sister, who by this time has cried herself into a coughing and puking fit. Once that is over, she's ready to play with her brother. So, now I have two kids wide awake at eleven at night. They proceed to spend the next two hours playing with their toys and each other and having squealing & screaming contests. Luckily, the "silent" generators drown out their noise - what would the neighbours think if they hear them???
Finally, at about one a.m., big sister decides she wants to go to bed and that Daddy needs to go to bed too. So, to my delight, off they go and all I have to do is convince baby brother to take his bottle so he can get back to sleep. It takes another fifteen minutes and the voices of Toni Braxton and the deliciously yummy Il Divo quartet singing The Time of Our Lives (the official song of the 2006 FIFA world cup in Germany) to lull him back to sleep.
So, here I am, blogging when I should be studying. What am I studying for? That's part 2 of this! Later!
I love the solitude and near silence of the wee hours - except that in the recent years, that silence is gone, shattered by the incessant "pepper-grinder" sounds of the "silent" generators in the neighbourhood - ours inclusive!. Our perennial "powerless" state makes the possession of a generator a necessity.
The night gives me the space I need, the sense of being alone and the time to sort through the jumble of my thoughts and ideas, dreams and aspirations, plans and hopes. And it also, usually means that neither husband nor kids are making any demands. Usually! Tonight, all of them chose to be awake AND demanding of my time and attention. My toddler, woken up by the cough that seems to be more a nocturnal thing, wakes her baby brother up by her crying (mind, she cries not because of the cough but because she wants to come sleep in Mummy's bed). Luckily, Daddy is awake, so he picks baby brother up, which upsets big sister who, though she loves her baby brother to bits does NOT see why she should share ANYTHING or PERSON that she believes are hers (and these days, that is about everything!). So, though we rock baby brother back to sleep, big sister starts crying again, in the fashion of toddlers - mouth wide open, voice raised to the highest possible pitch. Baby brother wakes up again and decides it is time to play with big sister, who by this time has cried herself into a coughing and puking fit. Once that is over, she's ready to play with her brother. So, now I have two kids wide awake at eleven at night. They proceed to spend the next two hours playing with their toys and each other and having squealing & screaming contests. Luckily, the "silent" generators drown out their noise - what would the neighbours think if they hear them???
Finally, at about one a.m., big sister decides she wants to go to bed and that Daddy needs to go to bed too. So, to my delight, off they go and all I have to do is convince baby brother to take his bottle so he can get back to sleep. It takes another fifteen minutes and the voices of Toni Braxton and the deliciously yummy Il Divo quartet singing The Time of Our Lives (the official song of the 2006 FIFA world cup in Germany) to lull him back to sleep.
So, here I am, blogging when I should be studying. What am I studying for? That's part 2 of this! Later!
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