The Games We Play

Some people play musical chairs. In our house, we play musical beds. Even when everyone goes to sleep in their own beds, you never know who you'll wake up next to in the morning. This picture says it all:

Both girls went to bed in their own rooms that night. Lexi came running upstairs after a bad dream, and Lizzy wandered in after falling out of her own bed. Rather than fight with them, and get my own lazy butt out of bed, I just let them both crawl into bed with me. You'll notice Brad isn't in the bed...that's because he often falls asleep in front of the tv downstairs. Rather than wake the sleeping beast, I have learned to just let him stay on the couch. Notice how the girls are spread out horizontally in our bed though..it's no wonder I got up that morning! There was no room for me!

Monday morning tops everything though. Lizzy wanted Jake to lay down with her at bedtime. He had been gone all weekend, and they missed each other. I left them in her room, and crawled into my own bed across the hall. I fell asleep to the sounds of Jake making up bedtime stories and the two of them giggling. At 2:30 I woke to Lizzy saying "Jakey, Jakey" but I didn't hear anything else, so I went back to sleep. I got up at 5:00 to go to the gym and checked on them. Jake had taken over Lizzy's bed, and she was sleeping on the floor, butt up in the air. They seemed fine, so I left. Thankfully I shut the gate at the top of the stairs when I left. An hour later, I walked into the house, to find Lizzy sleeping at the top of the stairs. The gate obviously prevented her from wandering too far, and she looked like a puppy, waiting for it's owner to return. She woke up then, led me into the kitchen where she grabbed a tortilla from the fridge, then crawled into my bed. I laid down with her, and she slept for another two hours.

The moral of the story? There probably isn't one...but if I had to pick a lesson from these games of musical beds, it would be these: choose your battles. There are things worth fighting with your kids over. Where they sleep at night is not one of them (not during the summer, anyway). Second, enjoy these moments...very soon, they will not want to snuggle you at night. In fact, this week Jake and Lizzy are at the farm, Lexi spent the night with a friend, and Brad again fell asleep on the couch, leaving me with the bed all to myself. It was nice, but also a little lonely. And finally, sleep trumps all arguments. Sometimes, it's worth giving in just to get a few more minutes of shut-eye.