Thank God I Bought The Queen Sized Bed...

When I went to bed last night, I’m fairly certain I started off alone. Yes, that’s right, now I remember. It was around 11 o’clock and I had read for a bit, turned off my bedside lamp and moved to the middle of the bed. So how did I end up here, at 4 o’clock in the morning, with someone’s knees drawn up into my spine and another someone curled tightly around my legs?
I don’t know why I’m surprised. None of my sons have ever been big fans of sleeping in their own warm, comfortable clean beds. With bedding that they specifically picked out for themselves and nightlights shaped like torches and stars. No, I can see how this is much more comfortable for them - no matter that I am now paralysed from the waist down. My only comfort being that Jack doesn’t have his toes curling into my spine at 3 second intervals throughout the night. He’s just drooling all over my clean pillow and grinding his teeth.
Nathan, at 6, doesn‘t require as much room, and seems to content himself with any part of my body to which he can attach himself . Thank God that, at 13 and 11 respectively, Callum and Ben have finally grown out of sleeping in my room - the Queen sized bed was starting to feel a little snug. You know, when I first started having children I was determined to do it my way. I didn’t want advice from anyone - I would instinctively know what was best for them. So when everyone in my family told me not to let my babies sleep with me, I scoffed. They didn’t know what they were talking about, I would sniff. Besides, as any nursing Mom knows if you can figure out how to nurse on your side it’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet for the night. And you don’t need to get out of bed. But then you have another baby who needs to be nursed, and the first baby is still a baby so you can’t kick him out of bed. A few years go by, neither one of them seem ready to budge and you’ve had ANOTHER baby. Then another. And you can’t seem to break the chain.
It was a little easier when we still lived with my husband. He liked structure, enough so that he would get out of bed 5, 10, 15 times in a night and march the older boys straight back to their beds while they stared at me over their shoulders with censure in their eyes. Ben was particularly stealthy - he learned how to get in bed beside me without even wrinkling the sheets - he would lay his head on my arm, then slowly lift his upper body onto the bed, then his lower, then squirm as close to me as possible without a sound. So that I would wake up with him tucked into my arms and have no clue how he got there (my husband stayed awake one night to catch him in the act).
But then we moved out on our own, and their sleeping bodies littered about my room was - healing, in a way. It was important for all of us. When to stop, though? Perhaps when, in a conciliatory gesture to Ben when he was having some problems dealing with the divorce, I forced his brothers to sleep in their own room and told him he could curl up beside me. It wasn’t until later, after we had both finished the books we were reading in bed, he had closed his with a sigh, leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and said;
“Don’t forget to turn out the light before you fall asleep, now.” That I realized I may be grooming little mini mates for myself. Ewww. After that I tried to make the younger boys sleep in their rooms. For awhile I let them fall asleep in my bed and then carried them each upstairs. And was rewarded by a sharp poke in the ribs in the middle of the night and an indignant hiss - “Why exactly was I in my own bed?”
I bribed them with extra books before bed. I laid beside them and rubbed their backs. I waited to try to put their laundry away until they were in bed so they could be comforted by my silent presence in their room. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, like when Nathan wakes me up by touching my face and telling me he loves me, I’m not in much of a rush to change.