Cries in the Night

Let me preface this by admitting that there are three beds in the master bedroom. There is a queen sized bed, a twin next to that and a queen mattress on the floor across the room. The master bedroom is huge, so it doesn’t even feel crowded with all those beds/mattresses in there.

But here’s the thing. Alyssa and Olivia go to sleep every night in the queen bed, the one that is actually set up, not the mattress that was tossed there a few months ago when I took it off the queen frame and put a new mattress on it. Sadly, I hate the new mattress so I’m glad I left the other one on the floor. I ended up putting a fitted sheet on it and covering it with a comforter because…I bed hop.

Since the girls are in the queen bed, I start out in the twin. The twin was originally put up in there for Alyssa because when we first moved into the house, it was just me and the girls. Tom was still trying to sell our old house and he was living there, with frequent visits with us in the new house.

With just the three of us, I hated the idea of Alyssa down the hall. So did she, so the twin bed made sense.

And you know what? I’m sort of tired of apologizing for this. I’m tired of making excuses for how and where the girls sleep. Let me just confess right here to being an attached parent. That makes me sound better, doesn’t it? It makes it seem like this was a parenting decision, not a random accident of circumstances. I like that. I guess I can say I’m mom enough. Except I didn’t breast feed a four year old. Heck, I didn’t even breast feel an infant, either of them. But I’m still attached in so many ways.

Anyway! Six paragraphs later, I’ll try to come to the point. The point is, in the middle of most nights, Olivia wakes up and joins me in the twin bed. And then takes it over. And I migrate to the queen mattress on the floor across the room. Where I can be comfortable and not constantly nudged in the back by a kicky five year old.

This all happened last night, one of the hottest nights yet this year. We were all uncomfortable. I had made my way to the mattress and I was very comfy, my back to the rest of the room, sleeping away. I vaguely heard Olivia get out of the twin bed. I heard her call out and I kept expecting to feel her climbing onto the mattress with me.

Instead, a few minutes later, I heard her let out a wail of distress. She was as the bottom of the stairs, distraught because she couldn’t find me. I went to the top of the stairs and called to her. She raced up those stairs and into my arms.

Tom called from the living room (he tends to fall asleep on the couch and I’m just too tired to make him come upstairs and besides…where would he go if he did come upstairs? Did I mention that though I’m mom enough, I might not be quite wife enough?)

He asked if we were okay.

I told him we were. And we settled in for a five minute snuggle before the alarm went off.

Tom mentioned later that morning that it had been years since he’d been woken up by a cry like that.

I considered suggesting he make a place for himself upstairs in what is supposed to be OUR room and he’d hear those cries much more often. But I didn’t. I think that might have been mean and I’m trying so hard these days not to be mean.