Just A Sliver

I have never understood those parents who let their children sleep with them until they're practically teenagers.  I know better than to judge, but as I lay there last night with a small creature draped across my face I had to wonder at how they maintain any sanity whatsoever.  My husband and I have a king size bed.....and I love it.  Most nights I can sprawl around like a lizard sunning on a rock.  Of course, then there are the nights where the dog is on my feet....or my husband has taken up more than his fair share of room.  And lets not forget the nights that one of the smallish creatures (1) had a nightmare (2) couldn't fall asleep (3) didn't feel good, etc., etc., etc. and crawl in for a snuggle.  P.S. I love snuggling with my babies.

Last night poor little Noah was coughing.  For the record, he's been attempting to convince us co-sleeping is a good idea for a few months now (sometimes he's more successful than others depending on how tired we are).  So I pulled him into bed and he snuggled his little butt right up to me.  I'm pretty sure I looked at the clock at least every 15 minutes or so for several hours.  At one point, as I was laying on a small sliver of my side of the bed I thought, "this is ridiculous, he weighs 25 pounds and he's taking up 75% of the bed!  And he didn't even pay for any of it!"  So I shoved him over towards his dad.  He slept there for awhile before he got restless and started to crawl all over his dad, who by the way does not tolerate interruption of his sleep very well.  This went on for about 10 minutes or so before dad said, "that's it....back to your bed." He went back to sleep in his bed.....for about 30 minutes.  Needless to say, I didn't have too much trouble getting up and going to the gym this morning and I won't have too much trouble taking a nap later when Noah does either!

High Rollers

I gave in tonight and played Monopoly "the adult version" (as they call it) with Austin and Connor.  I was dreading it, but it ended up being a lot of fun.  They've gotten a lot better at counting money and remembering the rules, so we actually did some wheeling and dealing!  I had to laugh though as Austin could not remember how to say Vermont Ave. and kept calling it Vermin Ave.  They also took great pride in counting their money and were very excited to get change back.  So if one of them had to pay, say $20 in rent, he would give his brother a $20 and a $10 so he'd get the $10 back.  As I observed their unbelievable delight in playing "an adult game" I thought of all the things they were actually learning from it.  Obviously, math skills.  Then there was the moment when Austin wanted to buy Park Place but didn't have enough money.  He was quite upset over this fact, but stated, "I guess that's how it works in the real world, huh mom?" What a great lesson - if you can't pay for it, you don't get it.  He quickly recovered and managed to wipe the floor with us as the wicked land baron of the game.  All in all, it was an hour of fun that I'm glad I made time for.  A lesson was learned by mom as well.