20- Larala sleeps six hours in a row for the first time in seven months

When Larala looked at the watch on her night table, she could not believe her eyes. Prince Nepomuk was not crying for his milk in the middle of the night, it was already five o’clock in the morning. Apparently, now that he was able to turn on his stomach, he had done so and slept for six hours in a row. So had Larala.

There was hope after all. But there were still too many feedings going on, especially at night. In the last month, Larala had managed to reduce from ten to five times a day, and yet it seemed not enough to give her the rest she needed. She felt very tired all the time. Presumably, the sleep deprivation had won over her body after seven months.

And this was just one hobbit. How did people do with a hobbit and a little loony demanding their attention? Did they ever sleep? She guessed not. When her nerves were on the edge, she could not go tree jumping or drink a glass of wine because of the breast feeding, so she ate chocolate and sweets. She had also remarked that these high sugar and high fat foods would give her the energy boost that she needed to overcome the shivering and tiredness in the afternoons. What she had not remarked was that she had started gaining weight again.

She had enough of breastfeeding and she wanted her body back.

Fortunately, Larala and Prince Nepomuk spent a few weeks at his grandparents’. Prince Nepomuk had started eating solid food regularly, so Larala could cut his milk feedings off to two. Prince Nepomuk did not like this, but grandma could calm him down and he adapted.

Larala could finally sleep and relax for a couple of days.

Two feedings per day and five to six hours sleep at night. That was manageable.

19- Prince Nepomuk takes a flight

With every day passing, Prince Nepomuk gained strength and this helped him to become more mobile. At least he could lie with his chest risen for a good while and the world looked already different that way. He could also sit without support for some time and in order to fight the frustration of not being able to move properly to grab things nearby, he was sitting as often as he could. In that way he could see his surroundings even better.

With this new perspective in view,  it had been easy to realise that green-eyed-face and the monsters belonged together and lived in the most-favorite-person. Same for blue-eyed-face and his monsters who lived in the also-most-favorite-person. And then there were all these other persons, mostly not favored though, who passed by every now and then.

Prince Nepomuk had also realised that the different tasting sticks in his mouth were satisfying his hunger, so he was not obliged to search the milk spring immediately, but could enjoy the mostly agreeable tastes and textures. It was also very frustrating to handle the stick, especially when he was really hungry, so nowadays he preferred one of his most-favorite-persons doing it.

One day, most-favorite-person took him to a very strange place. There were so many faces in this place and so different smells and sounds that it made him first anxious, then excited and then very tired. He closed his eyes and rested his head on most-favorite-person’s chest for a while and when he woke up, they were in another place.

It was loud and tiny. There were more faces around, some looking at him, some smiling, some frightening. His ears hurt. He did not like this place at all. Fortunately, the milk spring was around, so that he could eat and relax. And fall asleep again.

When he woke up this time, they were again in a different place and two new faces were waiting for him. Giving it another thought, he had seen one of these before, but he could not remember where. When this new-face-person took him in her arms, saying ”hello” with a familiar voice, and when he came very close to the face, he recognised the smell. It was like most-favorite-person, but a bit different. Then he remembered. It was the other Voice that sang him lullabies right after he was thrown out… from where, he could not remember.

 

**********
continues here

18- Larala looks back

The day had come. And it had come so quickly. Six months had passed since the day of Prince Nepomuk and Larala’s first encounter. Larala tried to remember what a person she had been before she had met the hobbit. Surely one that slept eight hours a night… but then also someone merely focused on herself.

She had managed challenges before and she had felt being equipped for whatever was coming, but these challenges had been about her and whenever she had felt like it, she had been able to take a break or even quit. Now this challenge was not about her and she could not quit because there was this human being entirely dependent on someone to survive, namely Larala most of the time, and there was no space for “I want a break”s or “I quit”s.

Never.

After having realised this fact and after having really let it sink into her consciousness, Larala had a much easier time dealing with the Prince Nepomuk challenge. If you gave it a real thought, all this surviving and growing up business was much harder for Prince Nepomuk than for anyone else.

Imagine that you could see what was going around you and watch but never move around or reach for something. You could move your hands and feet but they would never go the way you wanted them to go. You would lie on your back without being able to move and if you would turn on your stomach by accident, you would not be able to turn back. What a nightmare!

Thinking about Prince Nepomuk’s point of view did not make things easier all the time, because all that sleep deprivation and tiredness had a price on Larala’s body. She thought very often of quitting, going far away, drinking a cocktail or five, swimming for an hour, running ten miles, climbing rocks, visiting new cities, making some big deals with her customers, … but all her thoughts wandered back to this little hobbit who had started to give her the damn cutest smiles she had ever seen.

There he was, Prince Nepomuk, a charming person who became more independent each day. Not a hobbit anymore. Soon another six months would pass with the speed of light bringing out a prince ready to conquer the world.

17- Prince Nepomuk gets very frustrated

Not being able to move around was so frustrating for Prince Nepomuk. Now he could turn from his back to his stomach, but then he could not turn back. It was so hard to keep the head up all the time lying on his stomach. He would always need to call the monsters to help him and this, he did not like at all.

Sometimes the monsters would sit him down in a high place where he could see so much better. This was at least something! He would watch green-eyed-face and smile at her. But, in this position, he would get tired very soon. Sometimes the monsters would bring him different things to touch. He would touch them with his hands and also with his tongue. There were so different textures and smells…

“When will I be able to move around,” he asked candy pirate one day.

“Soon enough,” said candy pirate and smiled. “Let us play until then.”

And so they did.

16- Larala becomes anxious

Once Larala had gotten used to some free time, she started taking it for granted and easily became frustrated when things did not work the usual way. And nothing almost never happened the usual way. One day Prince Nepomuk would sleep five hours in a row at night, the other day, he would wake up every two to three hours. Larala was trying hard to adjust him into a schedule, but he still would sleep irregularly and order drinks about every three hours.

Larala had also started feeding the prince some porridge, and since he seemed to enjoy it, she had hoped to cut off the milk soon but the hobbitologist had told her that Prince Nepomuk would still need his five times a day for a while. Oh, my! At least she could cut down from ten to five, she had tried to comfort herself…

Beside all these frustrating moments, there were some very lovely ones too. Prince Nepomuk would insistingly look Larala into the eyes signaling that he wanted to drink milk. Sometimes he would babble around in a complaining manner. Having enough of lying around all the time, he would ask her to pull him up to a sitting position, with some funny noises and glances, and when she would do so, he would smile at her.

There was a special bond arising between them. She happily loved him and, what a surprise, he seemed to love her too.

One day, Larala was crossing the street with the prince in his stroller. Suddenly, a car came out of nowhere and hit the stroller with the prince sleeping in it.  Larala saw the stroller fly into the air and crash down onto the asphalt with a shattering sound. She hold her breath for a second and went pale. As she slowly let the air out, she could not believe that she had imagined something that horrible. Worse than that, the feeling had been immensely strong. 

Now that she had made peace with the little hobbit and loved him so much, she had become very anxious to loose him in a stupid accident. Life was hanging by a thread. Life was so precious. Her legs were still shaky when she continued her walk.

15- Prince Nepomuk takes a swim

Once Prince Nepomuk had realized that green eyes belonged to a face, he recognized blue-eyed-face too. And there were so many other faces around that were so different from the two that he already knew. Some faces would come very near, some would stay away, some would smile at him. He did not like all of them. Most of them were so different and sounded so strange.

The days of Prince Nepomuk were passing with him grabbing everything in his reach and trying to get a taste of it. All these things were so different in color, texture and taste. And though he would visit the milk spring from time to time, the monsters would put sticks in his mouth more often and he would grab them to taste the yummy porridge.

One day, Prince Nepomuk was in a strange place with a lot of strange faces. Blue-eyed face was with him. All of a sudden his feet felt wet, then his legs, his stomach, chest, arms. Hooooooooo. That felt good!

He could move much easier in this place. It was something liquid in which he was sitting, so he tried a sip of it, but it did not taste so good. Then he realised that he could reach his foot and take a bite of it.

“Hmmm, that is really fun,” he babbled.

Blue-eyed-face was smiling. Here he could stay forever but unfortunately he started feeling cold. Before it really got uncomfortable, the monsters took him out of the liquid and rubbed him warm with a big flannel.

“I can wrestle you,” he told the flannel and rolled over to the side and back to his back again.

Then he heard a squeaking sound. But as soon as he stopped talking, it disappeared.

“What was that?” he asked. Here again.

And so he continued until he got tired of hearing his galactic friends from another planet talking.

He wondered if he could eat his foot again. Oh, yes! It was possible outside of the liquid too. But it tasted a bit different this time, a bit like a flannel cloth. And so he chewed on his sock until he became very tired. Green-eyed-face came and sang him a lullaby.

The monsters brought him to bed.

14- Larala feels free after months of slavery

Larala could not remember if it came overnight or slowly as time was passing by, but one day she realized that after months of 24-hours-a-day-and-seven-days-a-week-slavery, she seemed to have a few hours in the day where she could go to the bathroom or take a shower without having to rush out immediately. Not that Prince Nepomuk had become less demanding, but he would not object to continue his daytime nap in his bed, and so, to Larala’s surprise, her arms had become free.

Some outsider even would think that Prince Nepomuk had transformed into the cutest hobbit in the world, but people who had seen him cry knew better. At least, he could occupy himself for a couple of minutes while looking around or playing with something. And during the day, Larala would wrap him tightly in a blanket, rock him gently into sleep and carefully place him in his bed, where he would remain for about an hour without waking up.

In these peaceful moments, Larala would catch herself spending one hour here, one hour there and would be surprised to see how much time would pass all of a sudden without doing anything because of Larala being in alert that the prince would wake up any moment. But he would not.

One such a day, as Larala was reading some hobbit manuals in the internet, she became aware of her tree trunk feet again. To her horror, they seemed even bigger than a couple of months ago. She wanted to scream, cry out, howl, roar, shout, scream again… but finally had to remind herself calmly that there was nothing that she could have done about them until now.

“But you can start now,” she told herself and immediately began a tree jumping session.

She had lost a lot of jumps and it would be hard work to come back to the days before the watermelon but when she finished, she felt much better and found Prince Nepomuk still asleep, giving her a chance to start organising the long forgotten carpentry project.

“That feels so good,” she sighed and, from that moment, she began doing things for herself regularly. In these rare moments, she dived into a world without princes and slaves to feel her human self again.

13- Prince Nepomuk meets green-eyed face

The days of Prince Nepomuk were passing very quickly. He had started to enjoy the time between meals and naps, so he was catching with Speedy or trying to grab candy pirate and his friends whenever he had the opportunity. It was kind of boring, laying on his back all the time, thus when the monsters grabbed his hands, he would try to pull himself up to see better. Then, he would try to bite the monsters. Sometimes, they would let him, but most of the time they would escape.

Occasionally he would talk to himself. It was very amazing to hear his own voice. And he would still enjoy the milk spring very much. Sometimes the monsters would put something more solid into his mouth with a red stick. Although, this would surprise Prince Nepomuk, he would grab the stick and try to put it into his mouth himself to see how it tasted. Amazingly, it tasted differently every time.

Once in a while the monsters would lay him on his stomach. This was so nice and so different. But he would not be able to stay like this very long because some heavy weight would drag his head down.

“I need to grow stronger,” he would cry everytime for the monsters  to put him back on his back again. How frustrating this was!

One day, the prince was just lying around trying to figure out what was going on, when he saw-green-eyes moving towards him. At the same time he heard the Voice moving towards him. That was strange, because both were coming from the same direction and moving towards him all together. Then all of a sudden, Prince Nepomuk realized that green-eyes and The Voice were living together in green-eyed face.

“You could have told me that earlier,” he complained and then gave green-eyed face a big happy smile.

12- Larala persists

Larala and Prince Nepomuk had started to get along surprisingly well. Larala had realised that the prince had started to trust her most of the time, but still, the situation was new to them and they had to try out on each other.

It had taken three months for Larala’s body to adapt to the sleep deprivation, but now she could handle it. Prince Nepomuk still woke up regularly many times during the night, but that caused Larala less a problem than the fact that he was still crying a lot while eating. So she tried feeding him while walking or interrupted the feedings to comfort him. It did not help much to know that he had a sensible digestion.

Sleeping was another nightmare. No matter how tired, the prince would never fall asleep on his own, neither in the day, nor at night. Larala had to carry him around, making “shhht” noises, and rocking him gently. After always some crying first, he would finally sleep in her arms and protest loudly if put into his bed.

So Larala was occupied the whole day, and the whole night, without much time for herself with both of her arms free. It was difficult, it was stressing, it was quite unnerving but with patience and persistence, she made the prince eat and sleep enough to be a happy hobbit.

And when he slept a few hours during the day, she could read something or write her blog so that she did not feel like commiting suicide immediately. These days would also pass. One day, Prince Nepomuk would eat and sleep on his own, and then Larala would miss these days. Or so she tried to convince herself.

11- Prince Nepomuk watches

As days passed by, Prince Nepomuk started to adapt to the way green-eyes were commanding the monsters. There was still room for improvements but the two of them would come along, it seemed. He had also discovered that there was Another Voice talking to him and had seen blue-eyes who were trying as much as green-eyes to tell the monsters what to do. To his surprise, he wasn’t feeling so sleepy anymore, so that he had started to spend his days exploring his surroundings. 

There were candy pirate and his friends, for instance. Prince Nepomuk would always try to catch them to see how they taste but unfortunately could not move his arms the way he wanted. So he would ask candy pirate and his friends to move towards his mouth and they would dangle in his direction. But before finally arriving, they would always stop and the prince would have to call louder to make them budge again. Soon, he would catch them for sure.

One day, when Prince Nepomuk was lying on his back and looking around, a blue mouse face came into his view. Immediately he tried to get it between his fingers and succeeded to grab a cuddly flannel cloth that was attached to the mouse’s face.

“Hi! I am Speedy,” the mouse said. Prince Nepomuk loved him right away.

“You are so nice to touch,” he told Speedy. “Can we catch around?”

“Sure.”

Amazingly, Speedy did not get lost like the others. Whenever the prince tried to grab the mouse, he caught the red, blue and white plaid pyjamas of Speedy or the so-nice-to-touch flannel. Prince Nepomuk knew immediately that they would really catch all day long.

He smiled.

“I’m gonna eat you,” he told Speedy and started to bite his big white nose.

And that was the moment, when Prince Nepomuk forgot about his old home.