Ansel is 5 and still seems to wake up in our bed many a morning. Sometimes I know he is there because he fell asleep in the exact location the night before while Corey was reading to him and we were both too lazy to carry his sleeping body up the 16 stairs (I swear the 16 multiply to 166 after dark) to his room. Other nights that he falls asleep in his own bed, I may, sometime before dawn, hear the slapping of his feet on the hardwood floor and brace myself for the inevitable hurlment of his body onto the bed. And there are frequent occasions when I am wrestling with daybreak, unsealing my eyelids enough to discover that Ansel has inconspicuously inserted himself under our covers.
Corey and I have both, more times than can be counted, cursed this seemingly unbreakable habit. It is usually the one of us that wakes up with little (getting bigger) toes in his or her nostril that does the most cursing. Some day it will have to end. I suspect that Ansel will eventually figure out that it is not "cool" to get in bed with one's parents. And he will most likely curse us one day for not having the parental guts to metaphorically tie him in his own bed.
But I am quite the perfectionist when it comes to rationalization and have found many irresistible reasons to procrastinate the spearheading of our "No Child Left Behind, On, or Under our Bed" policy.
Excuse #1: Ansel is prone to somnial giggling and occasionally I am awakened by these auditory responses to his REM sitcoms. I can't help but be utterly amused by these musings.
Excuse #2: On the mornings when I awake without the immediate need to rush, I have inestimable moments of deference when the culmination of all of the worry, stress, sadness, guilt, fear and anxiety about this whole mothering thing is washed away by the single act of witnessing the morning sun backlight the workings of the circulatory system in Ansel's portruding ear. And sometimes while I am watching him, he lifts those enviable curvy eyelashes and smiles. I am a mother.
4 comments:
May I offer a bit of advice? Several years ago your youngest sister-in-law (MSJ) was constantly at the side of our bed whispering Mom I'm afraid, can I get into bed with you? One night in a blazing moment of inspiration I got up, found a sleeping bag and extra pillow, placed it at the SIDE of our bed and invited her to sleep there. She continued to come in, but crawled into the sleeping kept by the side of our bed for the next several months!! Ah blessed sleep, most of the time we didn't even know she was there until we woke in the morning after a good nights sleep!!
Cute! I love snuggly buggly kids.
Beautiful. I'll miss it when my daughter breaks this habit. She starts out in her own bed, but wakes up every morning in ours.
You capture these memories so beautifully Vanessa. You are truly a special mother, your kids are so lucky.
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