I generally start out in my own bed, with my husband, as most married couples do. I go to bed after all three of the boys are already asleep, around 11:30 p.m. Then I read for another 20 minutes or so. Then I fall asleep. And that's when it begins.
Around 2 a.m., one of the boys will scare me awake by staring at me. (Just staring. Like a serial killer. It creeps me out.) He finally climbs in on my side of the bed, where I wrap my arms around him because I don't want him to roll out and die - and I can't put him in the middle of the bed because then he'll kick daddy in the you-know-whats.
A few hours later, the second boy will come in, and may even begin throwing a fit when he sees his coveted spot next to me is already taken by another boy. (No, he can't go sleep by daddy, because of the aforementioned kicking and because daddy is not soft and cuddly like mommy, i.e. I have soft boobs). So I maneuver myself out of my own bed, from under the first sleeping boy, and take the second boy back to his room so that he and I can sleep in his tiny little twin bed.
If I'm lucky, that's where my husband wakes me up when he goes to work, so I can get back into my own bed in time to hear my alarm.
If I'm not lucky, the first boy awakes again at some point to find I'm not there and comes looking for me. I'm very popular. He finds me in bed with the second boy, again wakes me by staring, at which point I get into the first boy's bed with him, leaving the second boy asleep in his own bed.
Have you been counting? That's three beds for me so far. I'm doing more bed-hopping than a sorority girl at a liberal arts college.
Or if I'm lazy (which I would be by 4 a.m., right?), I'll just bring the first boy into bed with me and the second boy. That's one adult and two half-sized human children IN ONE TWIN BED.
I look forward to the day when, like my own 50-something mother, I will be able to survive on four hours of sleep each night. Until then, you can find me napping in my car over lunch.
