Middle-of-the-Night Conversations

One of the perils (yes, it can occasionally be called that) of parenthood is that, at some point, you will share your nice, big, warm, comfortable bed with your small child...at which point, it becomes a cramped, crowded, too-small, uncomfortable bed as you contort yourself into positions not meant for being slept in, so that you won't disturb your blissfully sleeping, wind-milling child.

When they lay still and sleep peacefully, it's fine.  I can deal with that.  It's when they can't lay still.  Or when it's more than one of them.

We should have bought a king-sized bed.  Seriously.  There's not enough room in there for Hubby and me, and three kids, who are now lots bigger than they were 2.5 years ago when they moved in with us.

Medium Fry has recently developed the habit of seeking out our bed in the middle of the night, more nights than not.  We're still trying to figure out how to curtail that.  It's not as though she's waking screaming from a nightmare--we know what that sounds like, and then fully expect company in bed.  No, this is more along the lines of a stealth invasion.  She wakes up in the middle of the night for no real reason, and decides she doesn't want to sleep alone, and so she and Duckie meander down the hall to our room, where she quietly climbs in our bed, nestles inbetween us, and goes right back to sleep.  And, an indeterminate time later, a foot or an elbow or a head in the back alerts us that we've been invaded.

I have no idea what time Medium joined us last night.  However, I do know that, at about 5 a.m., Small Fry also came to the party in our bed.  And woke up Medium (if she was asleep).  Or they came in together, which has happened before.  I have no idea when or how they arrived.  I just know they did, because they couldn't leave each other alone.  Feet in the face.  Feet in the back.  Laying on.  And that was just the twins, with each other, not counting the appendages that attacked me or Hubby.  I do know that I barely slept because of the in-fighting.  And that Hubby, who sleeps on his back due to his CPAP machine, had ordered them to settle down several times.

Which failed.  Miserably.

At 6:15 a.m., I'd had enough.  "Back to your own beds!" I ordered.

Medium whimpered, the kind that indicates a full-on crying jag is imminent.  "It's too scawwy!" she whined.  I squinted to see through the early-morning gloom.

What was scaring her?  My pair of jeans laid on top of a suitcase that hadn't made it up to the attic yet.

Sigh.

I sat up, fought off the mild vertigo that has been my friend since last summer's auto accident, and shoved my feet into my slippers.  Then I unceremoniously herded my little interlopers back to their own beds.

Small Fry started crying as she got into her bed and I turned on the radio, which is pre-tuned to a classical station.  I re-tucked-in Medium Fry, and then went to fix Small's blankets.

"Why are you crying?" I asked as I settled the fleece blankets over her.

She whimpered.  "I want to seep in youwr bed!"

"But you weren't sleeping in my bed!  No one was sleeping in my bed, because you and Medium were playing!"

She whimpered again.

"Go to sleep."

Thankfully, she settled down at that and I was able to go back to bed and get some sleep.

Which is a good thing, because I'm sure I would've lost a battle somehow if she'd tried out her nearly-four-year-old logic on me.