Nearly didn’t even get to Blog Monday on a Wednesday. I’ve got a very good reason though. This week I’m Glamping and I couldn’t get to my laptop. Alright I confess, I haven’t actually gone anywhere, I’m still Home Sweet Home and sleeping in my own bed and everything. But for the last few nights my bedroom has been turned into a very smart glamp-site by my young sons. It’s my own fault. I should be stricter. These are school nights after all. But there are times my rubber arms are twisted all too easily and now here I am paying the price. Actually paying the price with my eyesight as I write by the light of my laptop screen so I don’t wake the sleeping bodies strewn around me.
It is all my fault I know. My husband and I rarely travel alone; with five children it’s become all or nothing so our wings are properly clipped. But now and then there is something that needs a solo trip for a few days (No, not together. Are you insane, that would take military planning). The last couple of times he went away the small boys missed him so much that I let them take over his side of our bedroom. His side of the bed and the floor space next to it in other words. It was quite sweet when they were littler but now at 6 and 9 they take up much more space and its more snore-y sweaty than sweet!
So that’s how it is now; whenever Elvis leaves the building the boys move in. Beforehand we all pretend life is going to go on as usual, them in their beds and me in mine. They even try to negotiate with me but all three of us knows how it’s going to end. They pull in with a mattress, books, floor torch for reading, teddies, alarm clocks and before bed snacks. The glamp-site routine is similar to the usual night time one: shower, both in bed with a book by 7h45, lights out for the younger one at 8, the older one by 8h30. Except now all the bedding on the floor and the cushions on my bed have to be arranged just so. This is a bit tortuous since the youngest wants to sleep on his father’s exact pillow (‘So it’s like we hugging’) and he has to check every single one to be sure he has the right one. Once the cushions are sorted there is the tricky part of having enough darkness for the youngest to fall asleep, but enough light for the oldest to read until it’s his lights out. And this also is the part where I am lying down in my bed as the peace-keeper, making sure the torch on the floor is positioned just so. It’s also the part where I fall asleep at 8h25, only to wake up again at 10h00 still fully dressed but unable to put on any lights for my own shower in case I wake anyone. Between then and my 6h00 AM alarm and my older son’s 6h30 AM alarm there are several midnight chats with a sleep-mumbler, some just-checking-you-there pats from whoever is in the bed, and definitely 100 million shrugging off of random boy limbs that have been flung onto me. Wake-up conversations are always focused on how they can get me to make pancakes instead of eggs for breakfast.
Okay so that was a long and rather random story about what my sons do to feel close to their father while he is away. Also a rather random story about what a rather random mother will do to keep her kids in bed and get them to sleep happy. I’m not so weirdly unique, and it’s not such a special story. But it did make me think of all the stories I’ve heard of the things parents do to get kids to sleep … Rocking them, patting their backs, rubbing their feet, hovering over cots, sitting in chairs next to beds, lying next to them: I’ve lost track of all the things I’ve heard that we do to get our kids to sleep with a smile in their heart if not on their faces. We’re all just a bunch of rubber arms at the end of it.
Can’t tell you how eternally grateful I am the Big Kids are now big and way beyond this kind of glamping! But I do still remember a time (which doesn’t seem that long ago, maybe a quick ten years?) when there were three single mattresses crowded around our bed from time to time. And when I remember their little bodies I think maybe this glamp-site thing isn’t so bad. Agh I’m getting sentimental, must be the early sleep time and wake up routine affecting my judgement! Do you remember any funny things you did to get your kids to sleep? Pop me a comment, I’ll read it around midnight.
Love & Glamp-site snores
Q
Ps Yes you got a pic of my sleeping doggies, cause these are the other creatures in the glamp-site that miss the main guy!
