morning.

Six o'clock and the sky is still dark. Ruby wakes up in one swift move. "Mummy! It's morning!" she announces in her croaky voice. "I pway de toys?" she enquires sweetly, patting my face with her sweaty hands. It's too early to play with toys I tell her and try to make her lie back down between Brett and me. She does for a minute. Then, "My care bear! Where my care bear?" I find the care bear, and she clutches it to her and exclaims "Hewoe! Hewoe care bear!"

I close my eyes again, but only for a moment, because small, scratchy fingers are poking at my face. "You ears." Ruby tells me seriously. "You eyes (poke poke) you nose, (poke) you mouf, you teef, you...." she pauses, uncertain of the word, her finger digging into my cheek. "You pfefulgus!" she finishes with a flourish, and laughs at her own cleverness.

After a while the game gets old. Daddy won't turn over so he is no fun. At last Ruby convinces me to turn on the play room light so she can get out of bed. The sky is turning pink and she sits in the playroom in her footsie pyjamas talking loudly to her dolls. I creep back to my warm bed, just for ten more minutes. Suddenly my glasses are being shoved onto my face. "You wanna book?" Ruby asks. Then, "You wanna cuppa tea? You hungee?" She is like a concerned Italian nonna. No thank you, I tell her, and she sits down next to the bed and plays a hiding game under the pillows on the floor. Then she climbs back up and gives me big sqeezy cuddles and sloppy, smacking kisses. Daddy gets the same. Her breath is sweet like vanilla and I could just about gobble her up.

There is the tiniest noise from the boy's room. They have both, by some miracle, stayed int he own beds all night, instead of creeping into our room and bunking down on the mattresses on the floor. Ruby's supersonic ears prick up. "Simey wake up! Deccy wake up!" she joyfully shouts and runs stumpingly into their room to get them. We hear her greet them courteously, as though with old friends, "Oh, hewoe Deccy, hewoe Simey, you wake up now? Come on, come on."

It is half past six, time to start the day.