And the Little One Said Move Over

Park was never really good about sleeping in her bed through the night. When she was born, we were living like "Good Times" at the in-laws. Having sold our house and unable to move yet into a newly built one, we were living in one room with a queen-sized bed, her crib, changing table armoire, a dresser - pretty much everything but the kitchen sink. So we had no where to hide when she woke up in the middle of the night and wanted us - she could look right at us and guilt us into bringing her into our bed.

When we moved to the house she was 16 months old. We'd put her in the bed with us because it was habit, but I knew she needed to learn to sleep on her own. The night she fell out of our very high bed while Larry was out of town was night she learned to stay in her crib and sleep through the night. That peace lasted even when we converted the crib to a "big girl bed." Until that fateful time right before she turned three, when I went out of town for business for about ten days.

While away Larry told me she started coming into the room at night and when I got home I saw that he was right. Of course I never witnessed her actually coming in to the room. [I am a notoriously hard sleeper. Once when living alone in the city and unplugging my phone to sleep, I unknowingly had family and friends in a panic. They called the cops but I didn't even hear them knock on the door. So when they entered the apt and saw my foot hanging off the bed, they told my friend "Ma'am back up and don't touch anything" assuming I was dead. They were all sorely disappointed to learn I was only sleeping!] I would sleep so hard that apparently after attempts to wake me to pick her up, Park gave up and walked to the other side to lobby Larry for assistance. But sure enough I would wake up and find her between us.

My first instinct was to put an immediate end to it as I imagined her at 18 still trying to sleep with us. But I stopped my scheming when Larry said "It's the only time she's closer to me than to you." And I realized that he loved being the one she went to at night, tapping his shoulder and crawling up on his chest to go back to sleep. And I enjoyed her waking up in the middle of the night to grab my face and kiss it.

So six months later, we still don't fight it. Even if she's gotten bigger and now turns like a clock in the bed, kicking us in the face at times. Even when she actually wakes ME up in the morning by telling me that she's hungry - and I beg her for a few more moments of sleep. Even if it means I'll never sleep-in in the foreseeable future. I'm just happy that she at least starts the night in her own bed and never pees in the bed. When I am up working late as I am now and hear her footsteps running down the hallway, I smile because I know her sweet-milky smell will greet me when I arrive upstairs. I'm happy that our bed has become a family bed where she can find love and warmth and kisses. And even though I may wake up sooner than expected and a little worse for the wear, I know that she wakes up feeling loved and secure. So, when the little says "move over" we comply.