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protectiveness you feel towards your child makes you incredibly vulnerable – probably as vulnerable as you have ever been since you were a baby yourself. Now, however, you understand that this is a vulnerability that will never leave you.

3
    A FAMILY OF FIVE
     
    Madeleine suffered from colic. She cried for the best part of each day for the first four months of her life. When she had one of her screaming episodes her little fists would clench tightly and her face would turn purple with discomfort. Gerry and I spent hours running through our checklist – Is she too cold? Is she too hot? Is she hungry? Does she need her nappy changing? – before we were able to accept that this was colic, and this was what happened with colic. Unfortunately for Madeleine, it could strike at any time, not just in the early evening, as is typically the case. I remember feeling so helpless as I tried everything I could think of to ease her pain: this position, that position; feed, don’t feed; rub her tummy; gripe water, Infracol; maybe a dummy? Needless to say, those early days could be very long and she was constantly in my arms. ‘If you pick her up all the time, she’ll never go to anyone else, you know,’ people would remark.
    It’s hard to remember how I managed when I look back and picture myself buttering a piece of toast with one hand (I am very bad at going without food), holding Madeleine in the other arm and never being able to answer the phone or even go to the toilet unaccompanied. Madeleine and I spent endless days dancing around our living room to the sounds of MTV. Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy in Love’ and Justin Timberlake’s ‘Rock Your Body’ were our favourites, along with a subconsciously choreographed routine to Mummy’s own rendition of ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain’.
    Poor Gerry would arrive home from work and would hardly have a foot over the threshold before he was handed a roaring bundle while I went upstairs for a loo break, a scream-free moment and a chance to regain the use of my arms. There were several occasions when the three of us would be huddled together in the kitchen, crying – Madeleine with her colic and Gerry and I at the futility of our attempts to take away her pain.
    I was always terrified that Madeleine would hurt herself. I remember once, when she was about four weeks old, refusing to make a car journey with her because the baby seat appeared to be wobbling very, very slightly. I know Gerry felt I was a bit over the top sometimes. But babies seem so fragile and with your first it’s hard to get the balance right. I always erred on the side of caution.
    Quite apart from the colic, Madeleine seemed to have an aversion to sleep at the best of times. It still astonishes us that she could survive on so little. There she’d be, surveying her surroundings with those great big peepers, studying anyone who came into her orbit, just taking it all in. Perhaps her curiosity and capacity for observation might explain why she always seemed so far ahead of the game and became such a knowing and endearing little girl at such an early stage. ‘Auntie Michelle’, my great friend, bought her a Blossom Farm baby gym from the Early Learning Centre, which had detachable soft toys. When you pressed the lamb’s head, the tune of ‘You Are My Sunshine’ would play. I remember singing those words to Madeleine so often, with a few key personalized alterations:
    You are my Madeleine,
My only Madeleine.
You make me happy when skies are grey.
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.
Please don’t take my Madeleine away.
     
    The terrible irony of those words brings bittersweet tears to my eyes when I think of them now. They have taken on a dark undertone, like the tinkling notes of a nursery rhyme in a horror film.
    Happily, Madeleine grew out of her sleeplessness. When it came, the breakthrough was sudden. We all went to Italy in September for David and Fiona’s wedding and one night, for no