You Little Thief

What have you done with your pillow?” I asked Tracey when I woke up this morning. I’d gone to snuggle into her and, unusually, found her head lying directly on the mattress. “Here you can share mine.”

I tried to insert my pillow under her head, but was quickly, if sleepily, frowned at.

“…stinks…,” said my wife.

This probably falls into the ‘too much information’ category (but then being the only male at work I have to put up with girls talking about girly things Monday to Friday, so you’ll just have to tough this out) but I do tend to sweat at night at the slightest chance, so we replace my pillows often and my pillow cases even more frequently. But it does have its benefits.

“Have you pushed it onto the floor?” I asked my wife.

Tracey was still struggling to come out of a sleepy fog.

“I don’t know…odd…wait a minute…I think…,” she was mulling it over sleepily. And I could tell the moment her memory kicked in, because suddenly she was sitting upright. “That little thief!”

After the wonderful bohemian atmosphere of the holidays we’ve been fighting to restore order to the bed routine to allow not only a good night’s slumber but also some quality reading time. The only way to achieve this has to divide the kids up amongst the rooms until they fall asleep, so Miss3 has been going to sleep in our bed.

And hating it.

Yep, at the center of all these bed shenanigans is She Who Must Be Restrained, Miss3

“No! Nooo! NOOOOOO!!” has been the lovely, soothing ditty she sings herself to sleep with each night while we’ve been Supernannying the hell out of her.

Then, when we’re ready for bed ourselves, I take her to the bathroom for a tinkle before tucking her into her own bed.

And, yes, I know the purests out there will tell me I’m doing it all wrong, but I simply don’t care. We’ll sort her out once the rest have their routine embedded (clever pun intended).

The only trouble with our current ‘program’ has been Miss3 now thinking our bed is, for all intents and purposes, her bed.

As evidenced by the flogging of Tracey’s pillow at some point during the night.

“Why did you take Mummy’s pillow?” she asked Miss3 today while trying to encourage her in an afternoon nap.

I expected some sort of malice, but then I do tend to project myself onto my children. The answer was far more simple and, potentially, worrying.

“Because mine fell on the floor,’ she explained to Tracey.

That’s the floor beside her bed. The same floor she would have had to step over to leave her bed.

“So why didn’t you take mine and not Daddy’s,” Tracey asked. But she already knew the answer.

“Daddy’s pillow smells,” said Miss3, screwing up her nose.

Which I’m seeing as a plus. But as Tracey pointed out to me, the problem isn’t what happens if she loses her pillow again in the night.

“It’s going to be a cold night for us if she ever loses her doona,” Tracey said to me.

As I get a chill if my PJ top rides up my back while I’m sleeping I think it’s time to put her back into a kids’ room.

When not typing away over here and checking his stats every two minutes Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his ‘BIG FAMILY little income’  Facebook Page.

 ’raising a family on little more than laughs’

2 Comments

  • My Miss 4 is going through the must sleep in “the big bed” and when I hear her duringthe night when she realises shshe’s back in her bed it makes me chuckle…. evil mummy

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