Fairfax Queen Sleigh Bed

available through Bassett Furniture

Sleep is not a word that is casually tossed around here... at least not by me. My kids are all sound sleepers when they actually fall asleep. Don is too. He can sleep through it all. Alarms. Crying babies. Crying children. Dropped pots and pans. Not me. I am The World's Lightest Sleeper. Perhaps this is good. Perhaps if I had a husband who woke up to crying kids and babies I would sleep a little more soundly. Who knows? Perhaps it is genetics. Perhaps it is, gasp, age!

I have no problem falling asleep. If it was up to me I would be in bed long before the children are. It's the morning; those deep dark wee hours, that seem to plague my sleep. Perhaps I have simply had enough. But I hardly think that is the case. I won't fight my inability to sleep. I think it a complete and utter waste of time to lie in bed kicking covers and Alexander (yep, you read that correctly) four hours on end. Instead I get up, pour myself a cup of coffee and enjoy the solitude of the quiet house. It's a wonderful thing. It seems that even my Crazy Crowded House can enjoy some calm as well.

As for this Alexander in the bed thing. He climbs in with me every night. Sometimes I am aware of his little pitter pattering feet scurrying across the floor and other times I am not. Sometimes I wake up to see his blond head peering over me. Sometimes I do not. Sometimes I hear a hushed "I love you, Mama." Sometimes I do not. Last night was one of those blissful nights when I heard nothing. I saw nothing! Until I awoke at 4:00 and felt a small warm body curled up against me. He's still here snoring quietly next to me.

The large body makes a lot of motion and snores and is, in general, impossible to sleep next to. I remember as a child how my mother would always fall asleep in the bedroom but would wake up in the Maid's room. (The room, in our prewar Manhattan building was technically a Maid's room. There were two. One was my father's office and the other a tiny blue room with a bed or a desk. It was used by my mother when my father snored -- so nightly -- or by me when my grandparents came to town.) I never understood why my mother felt the need to get up and out of bed each and every night. Until I met Don. Holy cow! The guy snores louder than the now retired Concord's sonic engines revving up!

We used to take turns kicking one another out of bed, or getting kicked out of bed. He does realize how he interrupts my sleep... and I guess shouting "Shut Up!" every 5 minutes interrupted his sleep as well. So more often than not he will fall asleep on the couch downstairs while watching TV.

It's nice for the short time I have the bed to myself.

On Saturday our couch is getting shipped off to the dump. It's had 10 years of kids jumping (although they are absolutely not allowed to do so) on it... kids getting sick, things getting spilled -- all sorts of things getting spilled... and general living. The couch needs to go to a greener pasture in the sky.

So what will happen to us? How will our disrupted sleep worsen? I have a plan, actually. As soon as Alexander crawls in to bed, I will jump out and take his! I will have the bed ALL to myself! His twin will seem much bigger than my bed as I will have no one to share it with!

The only thing that could foil my plan is if Alexander then climbs back into his bed to be with me....