Sneaky Sleeper

Aidan,

 

You've been sneaking into our bed for a few months now. Nightmares, bad dreams, sleepwalking, checking on us, cold, thirsty, lonely? Who knows why (well,sometimes we do know that it's bad dreams, because you tell us), but pretty much every night/morning around 5 am you wind up in bed with us, and your mother doesn't have the energy to take you back again, and I'm a deep sleeper, so I don't know you're there until the morning unless you drape your arm over my head. Sometimes you manage to sneak in unnoticed by your Mom and we both wake up surprised to see you. Last night, though, was an even more amazing sneak sleeper maneuver.

 

I tucked you in, and you were fast asleep by 7:25 (those swim classes really tire you out). Your Mom and I worked out, we ate some dessert, we watched some television. There was a huge pile of laundry in the bed. The evening consisted of a few trips back to our bedroom: putting away the weights, changing into PJs, letting the dogs out, and in, and out again.

 

We made our way to be around 11:00 and your Mom says, "Did you know Aidan was in our bed?" I did not, but there you were, adorably sleeping in our bed. You had snuck in there- which is really interesting, because if you wake up while we're still up, you typically come and see us, but last night you must have simply wanted to sleep...some where else. This is also impressive, because you're not exactly light-footed. Your thud-thud-thud isn't exactly stealthy usually.

 

But last night, you snuck out of your bed, climbed in ours, tucked yourself in, and got nice and adorably comfrotable..

 

 

I don't know if the huge pile of laundry was good enough camouflage, or if you had tucked yourself in so deeply that I didn't see you, but with the multiple trips to the bedroom, I somehow missed your beautiful face sleeping in our big bed.

 

I'm glad we got to see you there, so peaceful, so at home, so comfortable- exactly the things we want for you to feel in every room in our home. I couldn't resist taking a picture; you looked so beautiful, sleeping there basking in the soft light coming from the closet.

 

When I see you sleeping, I am immediately transported back to your early days as an infant.

 

You have grown to be a creative, impressive, hilarious, complicated, emotional, confident, sensitive young boy. But when we catch you sleeping, especially dwarfed by the big comforter in our bed, it's not hard to recall the day you first held my hand and used to sleep on my and your mom's chest during long naps, drenched in afternoon sunlight.

 

We kissed you and took you back to bed for the night.

 

I awoke to the sound of my alarm at 7 am, and was pleasantly surprised to find you there, cuddled between your Mom and me.

 

 

Bed, White, Black and Back

As you continue to grow, your Mom's tiny back starts to hurt more and more. We've already taken some not-so-drastic steps to try to help her back, including Preggoga, Body Pillows, Massages, Heat Packs, Exercises, walks and acupuncture. All of that is true except for the acupuncture.


But a few weeks ago we tried something a little more drastic. We gave your canine brothers the boot. Preston and Toby (or "black" and "white," as we refer to them when we don't want them to know we're talking about them (yes, we're weird (but, yes, it works)) have slept in bed with us since they were puppies. They are both good snugglers and cuddlers and like to curl up in little balls, mostly on your Mother's side of the bed...mostly directly on your mother. Of course we knew we were breaking the cardinal sin of dog-raising by letting them sleep with us (that puts on equal ground instead of establishing us as leader of the pack). But, seriously...could you say 'no' to these faces?

But, as the belly and your Mom's discomfort grew, the dogs sleeping habits (which are acutally just OUR human sleeping habits) started causing more and more discomfort. She couldn't be pinned down by the close-sleeping canine comrades any longer. And then, when the body pillow came, the dogs got displaced and encroached on my side of the bed. Our queen bed suddenly felt like a tiny twin and Holly and I had a talk. A very serious talk. It went a little something like this:

Aaron: "I think we need to start training the dogs to not sleep in bed with us."

Holly: "Okay!"

So, night one came and we just didn't lift the dogs into bed no matter how much they begged. Luckily, our bed is so high that they can't get up there themselves.

After a few minutes of whining, the dogs gave up and went to sleep on the couch. Two nights later they didn't even beg to get into bed anymore.

This was much more painful on the humans than it was on the dogs. I was so subconciously worried that we had hurt their doggy feelings that I had tortured dreams of the dogs pooping in bed or messing things up. One night, in my sleep, I even went and found Toby and brought him to bed.

But, two weeks in to the no-dogs-in-bed experiment, and we're no worse for the wear. The dogs still love us (trust us, we know) and the curl up every night on the very cumfy green couch. And we've reclaimed what piece of the queen bed the body pillow leaves us with.

But, your Mom's back is still hurting her!

Thinking that, perhaps, the softness of our bed has been doing her back in, your Mom decided to try sleeping upstairs on the guest bed since it's a little firmer. Now, when the guest bed WAS our bed, I only had nice things to say for it. Granted, we bought it out of some guy's storage locker after seeing an ad in the newspaper, but it was comfortable enough!

Apparently, sleeping on the King Coil pillowtop amazing mattress we now have has spoiled me and my little back. After sleeping upstairs, I awoke feeling as if I had been broken into a million pieces...upper back, lower back, parts of my back I didn't even know I had...they were all hurting.

Your mother's back felt mostly the same as it did after sleeping in the real bed. Major experiment fail. We were back in the King Coil pillowtop soft-bed heaven last night, and my back is now fully repaired. Your Mom's...not so much.

But, not to worry, for her birthday, Mimi and Pops got your Mom a pre-natal back massage at a massage parlor. Hopefully this will work. If not, maybe we'll try swaping with Preston and Toby-- they sleep like little babies on the couch and never complain about sore backs.