Chapter Ten

Once she'd put baby Joshua in his cot Jo sat down to finish the meal his birth had interrupted

 She then crawled into bed exhausted

Alas, Jo didn't get to sleep long, Joshua woke up in the middle of the night screaming for food 

 Once she'd fed him, Jo put Joshua back to bed

 And went back to bed herself, dropping into a restless sleep where she constantly woke from one dream to another 

Before long she was woken again for real 

She hadn't realised having a baby was so stressful, he seemed to be constantly waking her up by screaming

This time it was because he needed his nappy changing 

 Having dealt with this smelly task, Jo put him back to bed again

Joshua turned out to be quite a noisy baby, always screaming for one thing or another  

 Jo gave him his bottle, wondering how long it would be before he was hungry again

She felt so frazzled by this stage with her interrupted night that she didn't realise until she started eating it that she'd grabbed some spoiled waffles from the fridge - they tasted disgusting 

 Finishing them off Jo thought about her future and despaired, how long would Joshua be keeping her up at night?  And how was she going to cope with him?

 Going out to check the post, she was surprised to discover a complete stranger had sent Joshua a toy doll 

 After putting the doll in Joshua's cot for him, 

Jo settled down on her bed to read

Until her stomach rebelled at the spoiled food she'd eaten that morning and she found herself hunched over the toilet 

Having finished being sick, Jo went back to her book 

 When Joshua aged up Jo was deeply grateful, hoping that as a toddler he wouldn't wake her up quite so much at night 

 She gave him a bottle of milk

And ate some food of her own 

 Before collapsing in bed while Joshua played with his strange doll

 He kept playing with it all through the night, and even when Jo woke up in the morning he was still happily playing so she took the chance to grab an extra nap

It wasn't to last forever though, Josh soon started screaming from tiredness and Jo had to get up and put him to bed 

Of course as soon as she went to pick him up and put him to bed, he stopped screaming and went back to playing with his doll...

 Nonetheless, Jo put him to bed, knowing that he'd only start screaming again soon if she didn't

Lying on her bed as Joshua slept, Jo buried herself in a book once more, far too depressed by her surroundings and the hard work of looking after a baby to try and clean anything up

Soon enough, Joshua woke up and began screaming for food, Jo wasn't sure how she knew it was food he wanted since he couldn't talk yet, but somehow she was certain

Putting Joshua on the floor and handing him a bottle Jo was reminded that she probably ought to eat something too

She grabbed something from the fridge, not even caring that it had gone off 

Once she'd eaten she put Joshua to bed 

She stared around the house in disgust, everything was too horrible to bear

But instead of doing anything about it, Jo went over to the bookshelf and grabbed herself another book 

Lying on her bed, she found respite from her life between the pages of her book, imagining she was far away, having wild adventures rather than stuck in a boring job with a screaming baby 

 As she grew tired, she put her book down and just slipped between the covers to sleep

Before waking up as she realised that she hadn't eaten anything before she went to bed 

Before she could get herself some food, Joshua started screaming for food himself 

 Jo gave him a bottle and went to the fridge to get her own breakfast

 The sky had just lightened with dawn as she finished her food, and just on cue, Joshua started screaming again

 There was no need this time for Jo to guess what he needed, her nose told her that his nappy needed changing!

Jo played with Joshua for a little while, tickling him

After which she went back to bed while Joshua played with his doll