Stuck in the middle with you

Long time readers of my blog must suffer through this yet again.

Newer readers will have had to dig into the archives to uncover this.

For those inclined not to delve into history, this may be new.

I'm going to write about sleeping with the kids again.

I love sleeping with my kids. I love the fact that my kids want to sleep with us. I love the idea that they wake up, scattered around the house, and one by one, wend their way into our bedroom and into our bed. And we end up in a pile in our bed in the morning.

I'm not sure exactly when this particular night was. I've been coming and going a lot lately, as I've been working in Southern California, so I'm home some nights during the week, as well as on the weekends. And sometimes I know when smaller beings have joined us, and other times I don't know until I wake up in the morning.

This particular morning, I remember recognizing that Theresa and I were not alone. Sometimes, at the conclusion of the migration, the children desire to be in a specific place on the bed. "I want to be next to you!" That works if only two such children express such a desire. On this particular morning, all of my kids must have been missing me, because they all wanted to be next to me. The last child to make his way into our sleeping chamber was Grayson. As he was climbing into bed, he said "I want to sleep next to you" and proceeded to squirm his way between Noah and me. This woke Noah up, and he didn't truly appreciate this turn of events. So, to satisfy all of my children, Grayson ended up laying down on top of me, placing his head on my chest, and falling peacefully back to sleep.

I'll probably remember that morning the rest of my life.