I’m not sure I’ve ever been this tired. Although Craig recalls me being really exhausted in my first trimester with Dexter, this beats it hands down for me. I feel constantly jet-lagged.

Everyday I’ll be up at 5am to do a little work before Dexter wakes, then be propping up my eyelids by the time he stirs in his cot. By Dexter’s nap-time at midday, I’m usually prostrate on the sofa capable of no more than occasionally changing tv channels. It’s no better when Craig comes home from work as Dexter gets so excited to see his daddy that you can hear the squealing miles away - not exactly conducive to sneaking in a quick nap. It’s now almost nine o’clock at night and I give it ten minutes before my head hits the keyboard …

… And tomorrow I’ll do it all again.

I’ve been doing some really strange things in my exhaustion. I’ve always been a sleepwalker and it’s got me into some embarrassing situations over the years. At university I lived in a shared house with some other students - in my sleep, I once filled every single glass in the whole house with water and arranged them in a semi-circle around my bed - it looked like an occult symbol and I almost sliced my foot open in the morning when I swung my legs out of bed.

Just a few years ago, on a work trip to my employer’s sister office in Dublin, I left my hotel at 2am in my pyjamas and headed in the general direction of the nearby River Liffey. Luckily security staff spotted me on CCTV and guided me to back to my room. I only found out about the incident when reception cheerfully filled me in upon checking out.

Although I haven’t managed anything quite as extravagant in the past month, the signs are there that I might be due an episode. It usually happens in times of high stress and exhaustion, and particularly when I’m in an unfamiliar place. With a bit of luck, the fact I’m sleeping in my own home, will mean you won’t find me walking around my village naked in the dead of the night, but I’m still doing some strange old things.

This afternoon I spent hours searching for my purse and even went so far as to suspect my 16 month old of tossing it out of the pushchair when we went for a walk earlier in the day. I found it 15 minutes ago (4 hours later!) in the fridge. The fridge!

Unfortunately this isn’t an isolated incident either. Yesterday I flushed my favourite necklace down the toilet, and a few days ago Craig caught me re-homing a bottle of ketchup in the washing machine.

I’m also finding it difficult to differentiate between dreams and reality - I’m constantly having to double-check whether conversations I’ve had with Craig have actually taken place or I’ve dreamt them. These can be really mundane conversations about packing for holiday, dinner that evening, or additions to the weekly shop. I suppose this shows just how boring my dreams must be!

I’m still very emotional too.

You might remember that last week I had CloudbabiesTVgate with Dexter, well this week it was the Smoke Detector Incident. In fact, the remains of our smoke detector are now laying beside me as I type - a mass of shattered casing and mangled wiring.

You see, today I popped Dex down for a nap at around 1.30pm. I was so shattered I wasn’t sure if I should crank open the laptop or crawl in bed for a nap of my own. In any case, I thought I’d start with a nice bath as it takes around half an hour for Dexter to settle into a sleep anyway. So I crept around upstairs and tried to run the bath quietly so as not to disturb Dex. At this moment, our over-sensitive smoke detector decided to have a tantrum.

At first it was just a few intermittent beeps, no doubt in response to the fact I hadn’t opened the bathroom window. But then, just as I was beginning to relax into my bath, it got in a real paddy for reasons unknown. As the bloody thing is located over the top of our stairs and is too high for me to reach, I first tried the tea towel trick to fan the air beneath the sensor. Dexter (who still hadn’t succumbed to the land of nod) thought it was hilarious to see mummy and her pot belly prancing around naked under the noisy thing.

But it didn’t work.

Thinking back, a mop handle would have done it. Or perhaps I could have dragged the living room foot stool upstairs to help me reach the damn thing. But I was so tired. I just couldn’t think clearly.

When I spotted that a few neighbours and passersby were staring up at my open window and pointing, I lost my temper. I started to throw shampoo and conditioner bottles at it. Bits of plastic came splintering off and spatterings of Pantene coated the cobwebs in the corner of the stairwell, yet still the battery clung on for dear life. Deciding I needed something a little heavier, in my sleep deprived state, I somehow thought it would be a good idea to launch Craig’s trainer at it.

All I can say is RIP smoke detector.

The whole episode left me rocking back and forth on my bedroom floor, still as naked as Eve without the leaves (with the open windows continuing to let in the September chill). Any thoughts I might have had about Dexter getting his head down, and me getting in an hours power nap, flew out those windows at that very minute.

It’s been a very bad day.

NOTE: I’m definitely not advocating you should ever smash up your smoke detector. They can save the lives of your family and every home should have one. Getting medieval on said device won’t score you any brownie points with your other half either… Craig has been struggling to put up a new one for the last hour and is currently hauling a bunch of expletives at the ceiling… I guess each of these might as well be yelled at me for being so stupid.

Welcome to week 11!