Who Slept With Who?
Monday, November 29, 2010 at 01:50AM In my family we sleep around a lot. I thought we’d grown out of this phase a long time ago, but it turns out we just can’t help ourselves.
After decades of child rearing and at times the unintentional family bed, I spend a lot of time talking about how soundly I sleep on the nights I have my big king sized bed all to myself. Any parent knows that sometimes one must go to extreme lengths to eek out enough sleep to exist on.
Depriving me of sleep many years ago
How many nights of musical beds have I played in my lifetime? The fussy baby finally falls asleep in my bed next to my spouse. No way am I moving an inch. Fifteen minutes later a crying toddler climbs in bed after a nightmare. Now there are 4 bodies in my bed and I’m the only one not sleeping. So I gingerly creep out of bed to the toddlers room and climb in his bed to sleep the last hours of the night.
Is it any wonder that I’m a certified insomniac at this point?
Big Black
Whenever my husband travels I relish my opportunity to have some alone time. I march upstairs and immediately kick out the Big Black Bastard (our 130 pound resident watch dog) who will undoubtably be laying next to the bed pining away for his master. Ironically, knowing he’s on duty guarding the stairs at night helps me sleep more soundly. That doesn’t mean I want to sleep in a cloud of his gaseous odor, so I glare at him until he leaves.
This holiday had me feeling a little different. Our relocation to Austin has put a lot of distance between me and the people who used to be my babies (well, let’s face it they always remain your babies). I’m not seeing them quite so frequently and I’m longing for them much more than ever before.
Fortunately the oldest two made it to Austin for the holiday. We were sidetracked by the sparkling lights of South Congress and arrived home later thatn expected. Certain girls who were supposed to be bunking together to leave open beds for their visiting siblings were sound asleep where they shouldn’t have been (in their own beds).
We had discussed sleeping arrangements all week as I whipped them into cleaning their rooms. Like chess pieces we had agreed who was sleeping where, which nights. Clean up the bathrooms, stock up the towels, fix the sticky door. Did you ever notice how kids like to totally mess up all micro management of the household?
The baby of the family begs her big sister to sleep with her on our big comfy sectional sofa upstairs. The Prince falls dead asleep on the couch downstairs where he sat to take off his shoes. I poke him and try to coax him upstairs to his sister’s bedroom that we fixed up for him. Besides complaining about the lousy pillow I gave him he refuses to move so I tuck him in. It seems impossible that this 28 year old man was the same toddler crowding me out of my bed years ago.
Upstairs for the night, I find the baby (who is 14) sound asleep in her own bed, after begging her visiting sister to sleep with her on the sectional. Out on the large sofa I find my oldest, Jordan, sleeping soundly curled up on one end. The strange thought hits me, “ maybe I’ll just curl up on this sofa with my first baby, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her”. And so I did.
Adult's but still sleep disrupters
I woke up a few hours later to my husbands alarm going off at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. I remember something about an early conference call to Europe. Without really opening my eyes I slink into my own bed which has been vacated by my spouse and fall back asleep.
A short while later, I feel the weight of another person climb in my bed and within seconds I hear the sound steady breathing of a sleeping person. Maybe my husband’s call was cancelled, no it doesn’t sound like him but there is no way I am opening my eyes to look or I’ll never get back to sleep. It must be Jordan, all her dad’s pre dawn noise probably drove her out of her original spot.
My eyes pop open to the sound of my son clapping his hands to wake me up, inquiring where is my laptop? He got an urgent call from his office and he needs it tout suite. I’m amazed to see it’s 8:30. I turn over expecting to see Jordan sleeping beside me but I find myself quite alone.
At 9 a.m. I’m unloading the dishwasher when my dear firstborn appears fresh from her morning jog. I asked her how did she like my new bed. She said she didn’t know as she hadn’t seen it yet. OK, now I’m confused... until my son appears and said it was him that climbed into bed with me after he was rousted off the downstairs couch by his dad chatting away on his conference call.
Turns out I got to sleep with both of my oldest babies on the first night of their visit.
The tradition of musical beds continues.
The thing that did change is that I’m no longer the sleep deprived mother of small children, and for the first time I can remember, I didn’t mind the game of musical beds.
Reader Comments (8)
I long for the days when my two will return home for the holidays. But mostly only so I can fast forward and see that they've turned into something worthy and not landed themselves homeless or in jail.
We visited my folks and she booked rooms at the local motel. Three rooms for five people. No problem, right?
We had to change rooms a total of 8 times for those three rooms. Gives a new meaning to the idea of sleeping around, doesn't it?
oh mayor....i LOVE this post to pieces. LOVE it. though i only have two kids, mine were also bed hoppers. when i was nursing them they ended up sleeping in our bed more often than not. we had the family bed so many people poo-poo, not by choice but sometimes it was the only way for everyone to get to sleep. as the girl (who's now 13) got older she quit getting in bed w/ us when she had bad dreams but the boy (who's 11) still does so once in a blue moon. some mornings i crawl in bed with them to wake them up. i love that you slept w/ your two older babies the first night they were home. this whole post makes me feel warm and motherly : ) thanks for sharing!!!!!!!!!
Ahhhh Austin TX.....only a short flight away from us Mom! We had sooo much FUN! Thanks for being the hostess with the mostess. And thanks to Ms. Vicious for giving up her bed to me for most of the visit.
Sounds like a fun Thanksgiving weekend! Good to know that musical beds continue at the Mayor's!!!
Just want to tell you that on the way back through LaGuardia to Detroit, something pretty unreal happened. I take it as a gift to me but then pretty terrifying on the other hand.
While I walked through the metal detector, of course my knee set it off. The TSA guy was so busy yelling at people to "Have your boarding pass in your hand! People, have your boarding pass in your hand!" that he apparently did not hear the detector, I stood there for a couple of seconds, waiting. Nothing. I gathered my things and left.
How did it go for your Dad?!?
I really, really enjoyed this post!
I miss my babies! We flew the youngest out to see his siblings in Phoenix. They were all three together for the holiday. They had a great time being together and I'm so glad. But I missed them.
We have "pick your own bed" night over here on Thursdays. How I will miss Thursdays.
So glad your sweet babies were home with you this holiday in your new, sweet Texas spot.
Now that all my children are grown and moved out of the house, I can move to any bed in the house! Kind of sad, really.....