Back To Bed

"Back to bed" is a phrase I think evokes the idea of giving up. That things are going so wrong there is no point in going on with the day and simply going back to bed would make more sense so one could reset and start over later. There's been a lot during pandemic days where time and purpose became battered to the point of feeling like we should all just go "back to bed."

But I never hear it that way. For me, there are few pleasures in life greater than getting to go back to bed.

When you think you have to get up, or you need do something very early, but then it turns out there's time to crawl back under the covers and steal a little more sleep before your day must begin. I love that.

I have trouble sleeping many nights, and it's usually not until morning that I find it easier to rest, which never seems fair when I have to get up to keep to some kind of schedule. An alarm going off and interrupting real sleep is an unpleasant way to start the day.

But between my children growing up, and the pandemic shutting everything down, I don't think I've set my alarm for the morning more than a couple of times in the past three years. Quinn doesn't need me before school unless her bus doesn't show. The pool where I swim only recently re-opened, but as long as I'm in it by 9:00 I can make it to work on time after swimming. (That's one of the perks of running your own business: Setting the hours. My parents' art gallery didn't open until 11:00 because they were not early-risers either, so my 10:30 start time almost seems ambitious.)

I am not wired to be up before 8:00. I can do it. I did it for decades while raising children and I kept my alarm set for hours that are always still dark, but it's painful. For me, it physically hurts to wake up too early. During the kids' elementary school years I wanted a snow day as much as they ever did. Because sometimes that meant going back to bed!

Back to bed is the best.

One of the things I really love about our new dog, Domino, is that she also likes to go back to bed. The first week we had her, I was concerned because she needed to get up very early for a walk, and then wanted to play in the living room when we got inside again. I started resigning myself to returning to a phase similar to when my kids were small and I would have to be someone who would get up and stay up, but no. After the dog was settled into her new home, she started sleeping in, and then when given the option after her first walk of crawling back under the covers? She jumps at it. Domino has a lot of energy, and when she's wound up she wants to bounce and prance and play, but almost any time that I can crawl back in bed, she'll happily join me. She burrows deep under the covers and snuggles up. It's perfect.

I admire people who can get up early and accomplish a lot before noon. But nobody ever accuses me of not doing enough things, so I don't lament not being an early bird. I do wish I had more opportunity to go back to bed on an average day, though. It's like an unexpected bonus, a surprise gift, a stolen stretch of dazed calm. It's a welcome time-out in a busy day. I've had a few chances to go back to bed over this winter break, and it's made the vacation that much better.

Looking back on 2022 this New Year's Eve, "back to bed" is a good summary to me. There were parts that were frustrating or disappointing because that's life, but overall? There were more unexpected bonuses and moments of joy than anyone deserves. I got to go to Venice with my mom. I got a new dog that loves me. I got to improve our house with a new deck. I got to spend time with my husband and kids. I got to make music. I got to put instruments I made in the hands of people who were excited to play them. I made new friends. I had time with family at the cottage. I put out an ABC book. My back problem appears to be gone. Stitch Fix finally sent me some decent concert clothes. I feel more calm.

The pandemic damaged my sense of time in that 2020 was a slow blur, 2021 was disjointed, but 2022 unfolded in a way that felt more welcome and familiar. Like going back to bed.

I'm looking forward to 2023. I hope you are, too.

Clean Sweep

In recent weeks (months?) the house has really gotten away from me.

I don't think I was mentally built to be a full time stay-at-home parent, but at least back during Ian's two deployments when the kids were much smaller I adapted well enough.  There was no real upside to Ian being away, but there was some satisfaction in staying on top of most of the basic chores while stuck at home.  With another responsible adult around there is always the hope that the other person will do some of what needs to be done and you can sidestep a chore, but when you are on your own you just have to do it.  I had a pretty good system of starting laundry in the morning and folding it all at night, of making meals and cleaning up with a certain rhythm, and keeping things fairly organized and tidy.  When Ian goes away for brief Army obligations now, I still fall back into those old patterns.  But lately my schedule has been rough and my work days long, which means the kinds of things that are important to me in running a house have kind of suffered.

So between Ian having just been out of state for a few days for more Army stuff, and my mom coming to visit soon, I had a lot of incentive to buckle down and try to get the house back in order.  I do what I think of as a Baryon Sweep (which is a Star Trek TNG reference for those who don't try to give house cleaning geeky connotations) where I start at one end of the house and clean thoroughly, pushing misplaced things into the next room until eventually I get to the other end and everything in my wake is clean.

Taking Sides (Babble)

I’ve been thinking lately about how it’s probably unusual that Ian and I never staked out certain sides of the bed. Most couples I know who share a bed seem to establish fixed sides. It makes sense, especially when you have nightstands on either side to store your things. My dad’s side of the bed has always had a crossword puzzle next to it, and my mom’s a book and the alarm clock. Ian and I always just went to sleep wherever on the bed. If I’m there by myself I’m in the middle, and often (when he’s home) if I’m there reading or working on something, Ian will stand at the end and say, “Well, which side am I on?” before he gets in.

When we started having kids, we dubbed the two sides of the bed “The Working Side” and “The Vacation Side.” Whoever was in charge of getting the baby in the middle of the night took the working side, and whoever was allowed to sleep through it got the vacation side. As the kids got older, the working side mostly meant whoever was going to make breakfast. Before Ian left for his deployment he tried to give me the vacation side of the bed as often as possible. After he left, the whole thing was just “the bed” and it didn’t really have sides anymore. It seems too big when it’s just me in the middle, and often when I have the bed to myself I sleep diagonally just to use more of it up.

But after Ian had been gone a few weeks, Quinn asked more and more often if he could sleep in my bed. He has a twin size bed in the same room as his sisters, and at first he would let me put him to bed when they went down for the night because he liked the ritual of it, but after a minute he would get up and come into my room. “Can I sleep in your bed, mom?” he would ask in his sweet little voice, holding his stripey blanket and beaming up at me with his dimples and his squinty eye. How can I say no? There is plenty of room and he is a sound and gentle sleeper. After a few nights in a row of letting him come to my bed, I came upstairs to find he’d simply set himself up with his own pillow and a blanket, a few stufffed animals and a book. He gave me the proudest smile when I found him there. He’s been there pretty much ever since.

I was worried it would be a problem when his dad came back for Thanksgiving, but he was surprisingly good. I explained every night for more than a week beforehand that when Ian was here he’d have to sleep in his own bed. Quinn did stay in his own bed all three nights of Ian’s visit, but I also promised he could come back to my bed if he wanted when daddy left, and I think that was the key to his compliance. The day Ian flew back to Fort Polk, Quinn set up all of his things again on the far side of my bed.

I know a lot of people have issues about letting kids sleep in your bed, and normally I tend to agree with that. When Ian is home there isn’t room for an extra body in the bed. I make exceptions for when one of the kids is sick or has a bad dream, and Ian and I kind of draw straws to see which one of us is headed for the couch downstairs rather than all of us being uncomfortable in one bed. More often then not, however, the girls prefer their own beds, and I’m glad. I like that they like thier beds.

But things have always been different with my son. During the last deployment, I was pregnant with Quinn for a good chunk of time, so he was technically with me in the bed then. I used an Arm’s Reach co-sleeper after he was born, so he was next to me for months. After I started putting him into his crib at night, he’d still want some cozy snuggle time in the morning in my bed. He was nice company then and he still is. I’ve heard people say that letting kids sleep in your bed does not count as spending ‘quality’ time with your kids, but I disagree. There is a lot of cuddling and giggling, and I like that I’m a source of comfort even when he’s not conscious. He likes to press up against me at night, and if I move off into my own space he pats around in his sleep until he finds me and cuddles up again. It’s nice.

And frankly, I don’t sleep well alone. By myself I lie awake and my thoughts tend to race around. I obsess about things both big and small and I get restless. On bad nights I even scare myself with where my thoughts go. When Quinn snuggles up I’m just happy. He’s warm and dear and he reminds me I’m loved in the middle of the night when I’m most likely to feel lonely. I like to think I do the same for him.

By the time Ian returns from Iraq next fall, the plan is to shift around all of our sleeping arrangements anyway so that Quinn will finally have his own room. With a little luck, all the crazy transitions happening then (Ian being home, Quinn starting school, moving things around…) should distract from the fact that he’s not sleeping next to me anymore. We’ll see. It’s impossible to predict what his needs will be in a year on a lot of levels, not just surrounding sleep.

In the meantime, barnacle boy remains by my side both day and night. There are times during waking hours where I dream of a break, but never at night. The bed feels better with him in it. So after years and years of sharing a bed with my husband and not developing a habit of staking out a particular side, I now share the bed with a bitty boy who has become entrenched on one side, with his toy cat and his copy of ‘Caps for Sale.’ It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I am always on the working side.