Before the sun came peeking up over the clouds this morning, I was already awake. Why am I up so early? Well friends, I tried to roll over but there was a blond, curly head pressed between my shoulder blades. Where her cold legs ended, a hot dog started. I was being double spooned by the girl and the dog. And just inches from her, her brother, talking in his sleep. Finally I heard (not saw) my husband and his familiar foghorn snores. Ahhh, the family bed. Picture perfect, right?

No, no it wasn’t. This is a reminder that we really need to go all Lucy and Desi and get two twin beds. Now  that sounds live heaven.

All this togetherness reminded me of this post that I wrote a million moons ago.

This past week Hubby was on a “business” trip, and I use the term “business” lightly because a week of sleeping in a hotel with no kid-duty sounds like pretty sweet “business” to me, but I digress. While he was away, I thought it was the perfect time to get another man into my bed. It was this handsome devil…

You were nervous there for minute, weren’t you?

I know a lot of people who co-sleep: some by choice, others well….not so much by choice but necessity and exhaustion.  I’m not big on co-sleeping because I really hate sharing my sleeping space with anyone. If Hubby tries to wrap an arm around me, he usually gets an elbow to the gut as a warning shot.

Your space and my space, buddy. Don’t cross the line.

Lyla takes after me and has no interest in an all-night snuggle fest. She has a precise system of sleep and if we play our cards right, we don’t hear from her for 12-13 blissful, sleeping hours.

So when I had an itchin’ for some baby love, I envisioned snuggling my son all night, breathing the sweet smell of his head, and being lulled to sleep by the sounds of his soft snores. Ahhhh bliss….

Silly me, I forgot this kid is the WORST person to share a bed with.

First, I couldn’t get the kid to settle down. He was like a crack-head all jazzed up and ready to party. He spent a good half hour practicing forward rolls in my bed.  Then he started singing a rousing rendition of the ABCs while jumping up and down.  It took a bear hugged to get him to simmer down.

When the sleeper-hold I had him in finally put him down for the night, I realized it was only 7:30 and I really needed to pee. But he rolled over and wrapped his arms in a death grip around my neck.

I tried to sneak away, but he pulled me back.

I tried to unwrap his limbs from me, but he squeezed harder.

Finally I just resigned to snuggle down even though I was wide awake and praying I didn’t pee the bed.

This kid is part furnace because heat just seeps off him at night and sends me into hot flashes making me wonder if early menopause has struck. The only way I got out of his death grip hold on my neck was my perfuse sweating gave me enough slide to wiggle out of his clutches.

He also talks in his sleep; actually it is more like ramblings of a man who’s lost his mind. At one point he said “I just want to dance to the doorbell. We have to get to our rocket ship,” then giggles, farts and rolls over. What the hell is going on with this kid?

When I did catch a few winks of sleep, I would wake with his hard head pushing into my shoulder-blade or a quick jab of his toes into my kidneys.

I tied pushing him to the other side of the bed, but he would wiggle back over to me, wrap his sweaty hands around my neck and say “I got you, Mommy.”

Since I clocked about two hours of solid sleep that night, I prayed the Sleep Gods would take pity on my, but oh no, they laughed and Mr. Hot-Crazy-Talker was up bright and early ready to talk about buffalos being brown and having four legs. Oh listen to that, Rip Van Winkle is up in her room too and demanding milk and Doc Mc Stuffins.

Someone pass the coffee, cause this is going to be a loooonnnngggg day.