Musical Beds (or Sleepless in Fuquay)

This family has trouble sleeping their own bed. When TJ was little, like any toddler, he would wander into Lisa’s and my bedroom at o-dark-thirty to get into our bed and snuggle.  Grant became a master at not staying in his bed. He would start in his bed and then end up on the floor, underneath his mini-loft bed. After that he just started sleeping under the mini-loft altogether.  Grant’s visits to our room were frequent, often times it was several times in the night. Like me, he is an early riser so add a 5:30am visit to get mom’s iPad.

Somewhere after my deployment and I got home I struggled to sleep all night in the bed.  I’d find myself up at 2am tossing to fall back to sleep.  It did not help that Lisa has a tendency to breathe heavy (read, snore). I would end up down stairs on the couch watching my phone until about 4am-ish and then sleep for another 90 minutes until the alarm went off.  I found the couch had a certain level of comfort that I could not achieve in bed and the sleep there seemed to be the best sleep of the night.

Keep in mind that sometimes Grant would come in as I was dealing with my insomnia by heading to the couch so that two people were changing beds in the night. Sometimes it would be my turn to snore and I would chase Lisa out of bed and Grant would come in; and if Grant started snoring then I would go downstairs. That's three people switching beds.

Lately it has been Lisa’s turn to deal with the early morning fits of sleeplessness. I have rolled over at 3am to find her scrolling through her phone unable to settle down. When my alarm goes off there is a vacant spot and I go to look for Lisa in one of several places she might have crashed; Sam’s bed, the upstairs couch, in with the boys, or down on the comfy couch. Today it was the comfy couch. 

TJ has gotten much better at staying in his bed. Now 12½ he falls asleep quickly and is hard to wake up in the morning.

The only one in the family who does not play this game is Samantha.  When she goes to her room, she closes the door and is not seen again until daylight.