Blog: Wake my sleeping baby and I will kill you

There is nothing quite like the lengths to which a parent will go to preserve the unfettered silence of a sleeping child.

As one of my favourite comedians once said, "you never love your child as much as when they are unconscious but still breathing." This is, in fact, correct. As soon as the little person enters the world of the sleep fairies, I transform. Gone are my heel heavy, sleep-deprived steps.

In those rare daytime moments when his top eyelashes meet his bottom ones, talents arise that had lay latent during all those sleep-happy, time wasting, general-fluffing around, child free years.

That's right.

Prepare to be impressed.

It's not obvious when you first meet me, but I can silence a phone in less than two seconds. Nothing to it. It is of no concern whether it actually gets answered. No. One must be concerned only with dulling the noise. Once the operation is completed and the phone has been completely destroyed, it is normal to experience 5 to 10 seconds of frozen silence whilst you ascertain whether or not your efforts have been successful. Even the fur-child knows to keep still.

If one, indeed, has been successful, you are then free to congratulate yourself on a supreme effort and be able to joke, full of humour and "oh don't worry! It doesn't matter" (cue balanced, carefree laughter) with the person who did the ringing. If unsuccessful, however, blame will be instantly attributed to the ringer, at which point a text will be sent to husband (pain shared is pain halved after all), and the offending party will be un-friended on Facebook post haste - naturally causing considerable anguish to everyone involved. Except for me. Such actions are worthy of punishment.

Not only this, but normal bodily functions also cease to operate in the way that you would come to expect as being "regular". For instance, despite drinking multiple cups of tea and the odd sneaky coffee, it will not enter my mental space that I may actually need to go to the toilet.

In fact, truth be known, I can hold my bladder at 101 % full capacity and not even realise exactly how busting to go to the loo I am until aforementioned child begins stirring.

You read it right. I can hold on past the point where crossing your legs is effective and not even know it. It's genius. I suspect it's tied in with the fact that the toilet is right next sleeping child's room. I haven't seen it documented formally as of yet, but I like to think it's a similar skill level to deep sea divers who can hold their breath for long periods underwater without oxygen. Involves different body parts I know but I am pretty sure that you will be able to see where I am heading with this.

Also, I am now fluent in sign language, a skill that works in conjunction with a telepathic ability to know from some distance away whether the car sound that is coming up the hill in going to turn into my driveway or keep heading up the road. My ability to communicate "my baby is sleeping and if you wake him up I will kill you" to both people I love and random strangers from opposite sides of a glass window is remarkably effective.

And lastly (although please be aware that this is not an exhaustive list) I have an uncanny and (from what I can see), unparalleled ability to locate the floorboards that creak and, most importantly, where they creak. Consequently, for brief periods when traversing the hallway to the bedroom becomes a necessity, I move like a blonde, less attractive version of Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment. Seriously. If she were blonde and less attractive with a sleeping child and wearing track pants whilst typing, we would practically be twins.

In fact, the actual writing of this blog was something of a covert operation. With sleeping child dozing peacefully and with the other various household spaces occupied, I was forced to do the unthinkable - I was going to have to write in the same room as a sleeping bambino.

This requires a certain level of forethought and planning- one cannot simply barge in there after all and risk an untimely wakeup. First things first. I turned the laptop on only to realise in 0.3 seconds the loud "baaaaa" (no, not a sheep, it's hard to express the sound it makes phonetically) sound that would emerge shortly from its nether regions once I turned the ignition on. A short spate of computer suffocation with a pillow soon took care of that.

When I starting writing this, it was getting dark. Much too dark to work without a light. So, instead of turning the lamp on, I am opting in favour of a head torch. Head torches, it turns out, are quite complicated specimens.

For me, actually using it as it is meant to be used (i.e. on my head) is fraught with difficulty. Either the elastic is so tight that I feel as though I am only minutes away from a possible brain seizure, or the elastic is so loose that it constantly flops down and hits the bridge of my nose- both situations leading to red marks and/or welts. Decision made.

It shall just be placed on the bed. I opt for the softer of the two light options, which I like to think would be called "sleeping child glow" as opposed to the second option, which I imagine is suitable for only 2am possum shooters.

And so here I am, tap tap tapping away on the keyboard in such a manner that will not cause offence to little person ears.

A slight snuffle and a turn-around arises from my left. Best keep still for a couple of minutes. Unscheduled power nap commencing: now.

- Purakaunui writer Jane Pike is addicted to fashion, being a mum and not taking herself too seriously.