Musical Beds

No, this isn't going to be an interesting post about promiscuity and infidelity. Maybe soon. Just a boring bit about the nighttime adventures of the Princess and Badness.

5 years ago when we were newly married, Hubs and I bought a bed. I was lucky enough to be working in a chi-chi kids store that sold Marshall mattresses, and I could order what I wanted at a fabulous price. I begged and pleaded with Hubs to let me go ahead and order a king, but he argued, rightly, that it would almost fill our whole bedroom. I countered "but this isn't our 'forever house'.....and we'll never be able to get it this cheap again!"

It turns out that I was right. It wasn't our forever house. It was barely our house for another year. The Princess made her surprise appearance, and sleep in our lives was never taken for granted again. The ongoing game of Musical Beds had begun.

The house we live in now has three bedrooms. Huge bedrooms. Each one could easily fit two double beds, plus dressers and toys, and still have space to walk around and sit on the floor and play. Obviously, a king size bed no longer posed a problem. Except....for hubs. "We can't afford a king bed now. I like this bed, I don't want to just buy a cheap mattress." Hadn't I foreseen this?

It wasn't that big a deal, the Princess sleeps quite nicely all through the night in her own room, only coming in for morning cuddles.

Enter Badness.

For the first five months of his life, the boy slept only in my bed. This is not because I wanted to co-sleep, or because I believe it is better for bonding or child development. It was because I was physically incapable of making myself sit up to feed him. I couldn't have walked him in the middle of the night like I did the Princess. And if he stayed in my bed, he would nurse, and go right back to sleep. It was the only way that I could survive those first months.

As he got a little older, he started spending more time in his crib. But at a certain point I'm too tired to sit up, and he ends up back in my bed. Hubs will sometimes sleep in the bed in the boy's room, but it's a futon, and pretty uncomfortable; or sleep with the Princess. But most of the time he just clings to the edge of the mattress as his son takes up more and more of the bed.

Last night, as he crawled into bed past midnight, and found the warm sleeping body of the boy filling more space than you'd think a child his size could occupy, Hubs sighed and whispered "How much is a king-sized bed?"

Cross your fingers for me!