Tag Archives: sleeping arrangements

Saturday morning porcupines

It’s early Saturday morning. I don’t know what time it is. The clock is on my wife’s side of the bed and I’m not awake enough to raise my head to look. Even if I could see the clock, I still wouldn’t know what time it is because my wife keeps it set at a secret number of minutes in advance of the actual time. She feels this helps her get up earlier. The exact discrepancy is known only to her, or perhaps to no one at all.

I’m thinking how nice it will be to scoot over and cuddle up to my soft, warm wife. That’s so much better than getting up for work. Saturday mornings are awesome. I will scoot over in a minute, as soon as I am awake enough to control my body.

I feel a jostle at the foot of the mattress. Something climbs up onto the bed and crawls up the middle. It lets a draft in as it lifts up the blankets to climb under. A sharp elbow pokes me in the back. Icy little hands and feet sting me as they steal the warmth I’ve labored all night to accumulate. You’d think he slept outside without a blanket. Another sharp edge cuts me. I’m fully awake now.

The bed is jostled again. Another sharp, cold creature climbs up the middle and burrows himself under the covers. This one attacks my wife and I hear her react to the icy sting.

Saturday morning just got real.

Going to need a bigger bed

Everyone is all smiles when the children pile into the parents’ bed.

Somewhere, way over on the other side of the bed, I have a soft, warm wife. She is a forlorn dream now. With two active porcupines tearing it up between us, we might as well be on different planets.

The porcupines start talking to one another. One tells the other to roll over, or move his leg, or redirect his sharp quills toward the proper target: a parent. They begin fighting over their respective positions. “Stay on your side!” the six-year-old tells the four-year-old, as if either one of them has any claim to a side of this bed. It’s half serious kick fight, half gigglefest. I take most of the kicks; they keep the giggles to share between themselves.

Mommy demands they leave the bed.

They protest. They don’t want to leave. There’s no place they’d rather be.

Then lay down and be quiet, Mommy commands.

They obey, for up to 10 seconds. Then the jostling begins anew.

Mommy and Daddy decide to get up. A pair of skinny arms enfold us both. Don’t leave, the porcupines beg. Mommy’s and Daddy’s bed is nothing more than the biggest trampoline in the house when Mommy and Daddy aren’t in it. Of course porcupines love jumping on trampolines, but that doesn’t compare to rolling around together in the warm, safe fort between the two bookends of security.

Saturday mornings are awesome.

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Your virtual pal,

Scott (a.k.a. Snoozing)

 

 

We let Daddy live in our house

When Daddy is not sleeping in the bed, Mommy sometimes lets the little people sneak in and cuddle up with her. Going back as far as Bambi, mommies seem to like to cuddle their babies. Daddies have a different take on it, since daddies are usually the ones who end up tumbling to the floor when the bed gets overcrowded. Also, daddies have targets painted over their kidneys, so little feet know exactly which spot to kick.

Due to Mommy’s generosity in these matters, and Daddy’s downright stinginess, childish minds color the parents’ room in a certain way. Daddy has a pillow; Mommy has a bed. Daddy has a little area of closet space; Mommy has a bedroom.

This domain belongs to Mommy. It’s her realm. Daddy would be nothing more than a sleepy vagabond if Mommy didn’t let him stay in her room until he finds his own keep. And it sure is taking him a long time to stand on his own two feet when it comes to lying down.

Daddy is just more competition for the warmest, softest, safest sleeping spot in the house.

One fell out and bumped his head.
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said:
“No more daddies sleeping in the bed.”

And then you get a three-year-old who thinks he’s a comedian making a shtick of the issue:

Yesterday, Big Man had a long nap, so he was not ready to go to bed at the same time as his older brothers. When Daddy’s bed time came, Mommy was asleep on the couch, but Big Man was still awake. I prefer for him to sleep in his own bed, but since he seemed too wired for that I gave him a choice. “You can go to your bed or you can sleep on the sofa in my room.”

“You don’t even have a room,” he replied, the huge grin on his face betraying how funny he thought he was.

“You can sleep in your own bed then.”

Out of necessity, he conceded I had some kind of mysterious special right to Mommy’s room, having been the priority squatter there. He came upstairs to the sofa.

As I was putting a blanket on him, he pointed to the bed. “I wanna sleep in the bed,” he said.

“No, not in my bed.”

“No. In Mommy’s bed,” he giggled.

I shook a finger at him. “Okay, Smartypants, you stay put and go to sleep. I’ll be right back. I’ve got to brush my teeth.”

The mirth in his voice followed me as he asked, “In Mommy’s bathroom?”