"Come on then, angel, back to bed," Shelagh murmured, patting her little girl's back as she walked over to the cot again, having just done the two o'clock in the morning feed, as she did every night. Ten, two and half six, regular as clockwork. Just right for a baby of Roisin's age.
Yet, though Roisin usually went back down with a minimum of fuss; was asleep in moments, or at most, a minute or two, something was different tonight. Tonight, she scrunched up her nose and whimpered as her mother tried to lay her down.
"What is it, hmm?" Shelagh, alert to every shift in her baby's mood, hurriedly picked her up again and tried burping her and cycling her legs. Usually, if Roisin was tetchy after a feed, then it meant she was particularly gassy.
But this time, no gas was forthcoming. Rather, Roisin only fussed more and more, kicking out her little legs, clearly attempting to free them from her mother's hold.
"Okay, then. It's not gas, is it? Are you too cold, is that it?"
Shelagh quickly swaddled her daughter more firmly and made to lay her down again, knowing that, if she didn't go down within half an hour or so, she would invariably need to move her bowels and therefore be even more irritable. A soiled or wet nappy was, if her wails were anything to go by, the worst thing that could possibly happen to Roisin.
"There, now. There's no need to make all that fuss, is there?" she murmured, "Mummy's here, I've got you, you're safe. Just go back to sleep, angel, there's a good girl."
She kept her voice deliberately low and soothing and her hand reassuringly on Roisin's back, but to no avail. As far as Roisin was concerned, there was a definite, though inexplicable to her mother, need to make a fuss. She refused to settle, whimpering and wriggling, kicking and resisting the swaddling clothes until her mother gave in and picked her up again.
"All right, madam. Let's see whether a wee walk might tire you out instead."
Putting a now unswaddled Roisin over her shoulder, Shelagh began to pace the room, bouncing her petulant little girl lightly in her arms, singing a soft Scottish lullaby in a murmur at the same time.
All of a sudden, however, she felt Roisin go rigid in her arms.
Swinging her expertly round to her front to watch her face as she rocked her, Shelagh knew that what she had dreaded most had come to pass. Roisin was now wide awake and straining to pass an awkward stool. Her little face was scrunched and red with effort.
Shelagh bounced her again, knowing extra movement sometimes helped.
Sure enough, her little girl's face was soon momentarily relieved, before she seemed to realise what had happened and her whimpers turned into full-blown wails of agony, wails that meant, "I need a new nappy and I need one NOW!"
"Hush, Roisin, hush. You shall have a new nappy, but don't wake Daddy or Timmy, hmm? Hush," Shelagh begged her little girl in a whisper.
Roisin, however, was having none of it. She roared repeatedly in frustration at how slow her mother was at obeying her 'commands', an action she continued all the while Shelagh was changing her, at the same time as thrashing irritably on the changing table, evidently in some considerable discomfort.
Even once she was dry and clean, she cried irritably, stopping and starting as her mother redressed her in her nightdress and continued to pace the room with her. She wriggled restlessly, making it clear that any attempt to put her back in her crib would be fruitless.
The only thing Shelagh could do was pace up and down the stairs with her, humming comfort in a hopeless litany.
Which was where Patrick found them when he got up to do the six-thirty feed.
"You're up early, ladies," he said in surprise, alarmed at the exhausted look Shelagh sent him.
"We haven't been to bed since two. This little lady decided she wanted to be miserable and stay awake, which of course kept me up too."
"Shelagh. You know you'll spoil her if you keep her in your arms too much. You should have let her cry it out," he tutted, reaching out for his still-wailing daughter.
"I know, but I couldn't just leave her, Patrick. She was so unhappy, and still is."
"My guess is, she's worked up such a hunger, she can't stop crying. Give her here and get yourself back to bed. I'll warrant that once she's eaten, she'll be out like a light. She's probably just hopelessly over-tired."
Patrick took his cranky daughter on to his hip and shooed Shelagh off up the stairs.
As she went, however, he called after her, "Shelagh?"
"Yes, Patrick?"
"Do you ever regret it? What we've done?"
"In taking her in? Never. We've given a lovely little girl a loving home and I will never regret that. This is just a bump in the road, that's all."
With that, Shelagh escaped up to bed, collapsing on to the cool of her pillow gratefully, even as Roisin's angry screeches followed her upstairs. She had to admit, she'd never been more grateful for Patrick wanting to be involved with their daughter's life.