Once again, rather than work on my assignment which is due tonight, I am sitting here in the kitchen thinking loving thoughts of my children and drinking beer from a bottle because I just read that drinking beer reduces cholesterol - or something. Whatever.

Back to loving thoughts about my children.

Jakob has taken to showing up in our room every night because he "sleepwalks" and therefore has no idea what he's doing or how he ends up perpendicular in our bed. And, he says emphatically and also with triumph, it's not his fault because he has no control over what happens when he sleepwalks. Fortunately while sleepwalking he does come prepared, he brings his favourite blanket.

I am pretty much a fragile shell of a person because I haven't had a good night sleep in 13 years due to the wrath of god giving me two children who have never been good sleepers. Changing brain is now but only because he's a teenager and hard-wired to sleep for however long he can. So I'm pretty much beaten down and can't move myself in the middle of the night to force him back to his own room. Paul sleeps like a rock so he's of no use to me and will no doubt be phoning me as soon as he reads this line in protest.

So out of desperation I have placed a sleeping bag at the bottom of my bed and have told Jakob that he is under no condition to ever get into my bed again, or Satchel's, and instead if he does wander in must sleep in the sleeping bag. My thinking is he's going to find it so uncomfortable and unrewarding that he will eventually just stay in his own bed.

So far the success is that he hasn't climbed into our bed but has ended up on the floor every night - and this morning it was 5am by the time he crawled into the sleeping bag! Jakob does wake cheerfully every morning to proclaim that he has just had the best sleep ever, though he has no idea how he got there...with his pillow, blanket and now tiger.

Tomorrow: how I'm scarring my changing brain teenager for life by creating very special valentine's day cards to hand out to girls.