The co-sleeping chronicles

Every night, we put boy to bed after a bath, books and prayers. He sleeps in his crib until about 3 or 4 in the morning, when I usually have drawn the line at his sixth or so awakening, and bring him to bed with us. (On a typical night after a 7 p.m. bedtime, he awakens at 7:20, 9, 11, 1 a.m., 3 and 4:30. That's when I give up.) As you'll soon see, sharing a king-sized bed with a nine-month-old can be an adventure. 

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The other night, I had just settled boy into bed with us and was nursing him back to sleep when my husband started to snore lightly. It wasn't overly loud, but because the baby wasn't all the way in la-la land yet, I wanted to keep things as quiet as possible. So I snuck my foot over toward my husband's foot, and wiggled my toe against the back of his leg (he was turned away from me).

The snoring stopped. 

But only for a moment.

When it resumed again, I did the same thing -- stroked my toe down the back of husband's calf. Once again, silence descended on the bedroom. I breathed an inaudible sigh of relief.

Until the snoring started once more. 

When my toe connected with his leg the third time, my husband turned his head, and mumbled, "Is that you or him?"

"It's me," I hissed. "What do you think he'd be doing down under the covers around our ankles?"

"I dunno," husband replied. "That was why I asked. I didn't know whether to be worried or not."

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Last weekend, my husband said he had a dream that he was sitting in a crowded restaurant, and someone kept backing their chair up into his back. When he woke up, he realized boy was curled up against his spine, crowding him toward the edge of the bed. That kid's a total bed-hog.

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All the same, though, we love being able to wake up with him, especially on weekend mornings. The boy is just sunny in the mornings, and is such a joy. He and I usually wake up together as he fidgets and squirms, then he rolls over to see his daddy. That's when he makes a beeline for his dad's head and shoulders, climbing them to peer over into daddy's face, and maybe give his ear a good yank while he blurts, "Er? Eh!" until he's acknowledged. The other day, when I was trying to get him to settle down for a nap, I was pretending to be asleep, hoping that it would inspire him to close his eyes, too. I was rudely interrupted in my guise, though, when he crawled up to my face and jammed his thumb into my eyeball, trying to pry it open.

Yup. That's my boy.