Musical Beds

by Cathy and Patti

There was once a time when our things were ours. When our bedroom was ours. When our bed was ours.  This is not the case any longer now that our lovable kids have put quite the dent in the way we live - and the way we sleep.

Since they were born, most of us kept our babies in our bedrooms - so they can be easily breastfed, so they can be easily heard, so that we can ensure they are breathing. Eventually, we transition them off to their own rooms, but alas, those rooms are not as appealing as the parents' room. You would think our walls were made of chocolate! Our duvet covers were made of warm, gooey caramel! The pillows were fluffy, giant marshmallows! And there are glittery fairies that light up only our rooms at night and sprinkle rainbow-colored sugar over us while we sleep! Surely, this can be the only reason that our kids continue to want to lay with us in our beds or sneak in between us and our spouses in the middle of the night.

However, it's what ensues as a result of this bed-hopping that wreaks the most havoc on the way we look and feel after a night of having slept on pretty much every sleepable surface of our house - except, probably, our own bed.

Cathy:
Our king size bed (a.k.a. the Big Bed to my kids) measures about six and-a-half feet wide. Do you know where I slept the other night? In that half-foot of space. Let me explain...

Over Thanksgiving break, of course, the girls' sleep schedule got off whack. It was 10:30 at night and they were doing the Greek bellydance jig to the tune of "I like 'em big! I like 'em chunky!" from Madagascar 2. So I purposely woke them up 'early' on Sunday morning, so they could fall face-first tired into their beds that night and wake up bright and early for school on Monday. Instead, Sunday night, Ari was roaming around the hallway with her little pillow, begging me to lay with her at 10pm. After she fell asleep, Bella eventually wandered into my bedroom at 11:30 practically in tears because she was just so overtired and couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep. So I let her sleep in the Big Bed with me since Joe was snoring up to high heaven on the living room couch anyway.

All was fine until about 4:30 in the morning, when I heard, "Mama! Mama!" Bella and I were jarred from our sleep to find Ari standing on the bed over Bella's head. I thought I was having one of those delusional mirages like the parched desert trekkers have with water. Was this for real? I reached over Bella with one eye open and sure enough, Ari was standing there. She had apparently startled awake and realized that I was no longer laying with her so she came to seek me out. She was about to leap half asleep over her sister to come and settle between us. The only problem was that Bella was so far over on my side that I had to scooch over practically to the edge of the massive bed. I asked Bella to move over the other way, where she had about four feet of open space. She just shifted her knees before she exhaustingly fell back asleep.

So for the next few hours before the alarm went off at 7am, I was drifting in and out of sleep, tossing like a salad in a spinner, being kneed in the tailbone, face, boobs and the small part of my back that is so ticklish, I found myself jerking almost headfirst into my nightstand with every little fist and foot nudge.

Naturally, Joe at this point had settled into one of the girls' beds after almost unknowingly laying on Bella as he groggily came to bed. I thought over and over again about getting up and going to lay in the other twin bed, surrendering the spacious Big Bed to the two tiniest people in the house, while the biggest people slept in the tiniest beds. Makes sense, right? But I knew from past experience that I either wouldn't be able to fall back asleep in the other room or like clockwork, Ari would awaken from her sleep stupor - because she can just smell these things, even in her sleep - and want to follow me back to her bed.

Instead, I lay there half asleep, startling awake every time Ari would kick off her covers or toss uncomfortably. It was clear no one - not even she - was getting any good sleep that night.

Patti:
As I have mentioned before, S didn't sleep through the night until she was 18 months old, and even then, she had periods of torturous regression where she simply would. not. sleep. unless one of us was laying with her.  She didn't care where we were laying with her, as long as we were. This meant that, in order to ensure that S would not be exhausted the next day, one or both us fools (a.k.a. parents) would end up sleeplessly uncomfortable, uncomfortably sleepless -- and, surprise! Exhausted!

S is now a solid 10 years old, and guess what? She still has those nights. Except for she is now, like, 4 times bigger than she used to be, and slotting her in between M and me isn't as easy as it used to be. Yes, we have a king bed, but we could have 9 king beds lined up side-by-side, and it still wouldn't be big enough. Because the kid will inevitably find her way to the nearest back -- usually mine -- and stick herself smack-dab against it. All. Night.

Because of this, and M's "delicate" sleep cycles,  he has declared our bed a kid-free zone. Still, there are nights where he will cave and allow S to indulge in what she likes to call 'Family Cuddle". She always promises it will be for "just 10 minutes" - even though she brings the entire contents of her bed to ours and is clearly moving in  - and inevitably we will all fall asleep during this "just 10 minutes". And then, at 2 am, I will wake up in a tunnel of kid and husband, dying of heat stroke, an ass or two in my face, and an inch of sleep space.

The other night S didn't even bother with the "Family Cuddle" ruse; she flat-out asked if she could sleep with us. M was going to stay up later to watch a movie, so he said she could fall asleep with me, and that he would carry her to her bed later. I woke up at 2 am to find S spiraled around me, and M shoved far into the corner of the bed. Annoyed that he had flaked out on his "transfer the kid" promise, I huffily got out of bed and went to S's room to prepare her bed so that I could carry her into it without waking her up. S has a low bunk bed, and she has a cozy little "fort" bed on the bottom with a curtain. When I walked in, I was confused to find a makeshift bed on the floor? I couldn't understand why, when there are 2 whole beds to sleep on in S's room, there was one on the floor? Too tired to solve mysteries, I went back to my room and lugged 58 lbs of kid back to her room, then went back to my bed. Of course, S woke up and got freaked out and started calling my name. I went back to her room, my mind knowing I had to get up in what felt like 5 minutes for work, and shushed her, but she must have had a bad dream because she was afraid. So I climbed onto her top bunk, telling myself I would only lay there for 5 minutes as she fell back asleep, and promptly fell asleep.

I woke up a billion times that night, kicking the top of the floor lamp, scratching my hand on the white eraser board S had shoved under her pillow, hearing stuffed animals hurtle through space from the bed to the floor... In short: I slept like shit. Meanwhile, M had an entire king bed to himself.

The next day, I found out that M had come to bed and attempted to take S to her own bed, but she woke up and he didn't feel like dealing with the whole "transfer" drama, so he decided to sleep in her room. He tried the top bunk, but it felt "dangerous", so then he squeezed himself into the "fort" bed underneath, and it felt "too short". So Mr. Goldilocks made a bed on the FLOOR next to two perfectly good beds, but guess what? THE FLOOR WAS TOO HARD. Ya think? So he finally came back to our bed, and rather than just carry the kid to her bed, just dealt with being shoved into a corner, probably knowing I would wake up and take care of it all.

And I did. As usual.
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