Thursday, March 24, 2011

Musical Beds

It's not quite what it sounds like.  Each night at bedtime Nichole and I sit with the boys in their room just long enough for them to drift off.  It is a ritual that really goes back to their infancy when we would rock them to sleep.  Ok, that was six years ago but lately they've been wanting us to lay with them until they are out.  When the boys are tucked safely in their beds, we retire to our own.  We often go to bed at the same time as the boys... we are tired after all.  Sometimes we take our computers with us, other times we read or work our puzzle books. Then there are those times when we are so very exhausted we actually go to sleep. 

When Isaac was four or five we managed to wean him from joining us throughout the night.  Nathan and Austin, not so much.  Just about every night one or both of them join us in our bed.  We are constantly pulling elbows from our ears and toes out of our noses.  Nathan is a flipper.  He will spin around in full sweeping motions until he has slept on every square inch and stolen every blanket.  Austin is a crowder.  He will tuck in so tight he almost becomes a growth on my back.  Come to think of it, perhaps it is his arm sprouting from my ears.

We almost had them cured of the incessant need for the Mommies but then something happened.  I don't know what, but we (mostly Nichole) put them back two or three times a night.  Austin has taken to calling out for Nichole to come to him and lay with him till he falls asleep again.  On occasion Isaac still comes in.  We find him in the morning laying across our feet at the foot of the bed.  We don't send him back.  I figure if something bothered Isaac enough to climb in with us, he needs the extra attention.

So this morning I had to ask "did anyone other than me wake up in their own bed?"  To be fair, Austin was in his bed... with Nichole and Nathan.  Isaac was still across the foot of our bed.  The dog and cat were in their usual lumpy pile of clothes.

Truth told, I don't really mind the boys coming in, as long as it is only in the morning.  I call it family snuggle time.  I can't get enough of my boys hugs and snuggles, and I know that the time will soon come when they cringe at the thought of showing their affection for the Moms.