BIG news. HUGE! Last night my husband and I slept in the same bed…ALL NIGHT LONG!  If you’ve read this and this, then you know this is HUGE!

I think it may have had something to do with this little guy my sister got Cameron. Maybe with this new monster, Cam feel safe from other boogie monsters???

I don’t know, all I do know is that I hope this trend continues.  It sure was nice to sleep next to my husband!

Nice to see you again, Mr. Burns.

(I still had to get up for the dog (my husband and I took turns) and my daughter woke up with a HUGE wet diaper that needed to be changed, but each time I returned to the side of my hubby….ahhhh….)

We’ve added a new little one to our my co-sleeping adventure.  He’s furry and has to go OUTSIDE to pee and poop NUMEROUS times in the middle of the night. (thank GOD we live in a warm climate location….getting a puppy in the winter for Christmas is CRAZY…but Thank GOD we live in Hawaii, although to my now Hawaiian sun kissed skin it is chilly to me at 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. and 5 a.m….)

So my husband and I have been switching off puppy patrol.  He’d take one night, I’d take another.  But many nights I also have to go comfort a child that cries out for me and then I end up falling asleep in Cam’s bed and then hubby has to take puppy patrol and then he gets no sleep and then he’s a MAJOR GROUCH (wimp). And bad moods are as contagious as the H1N1 in this house and our house is way too small to have numerous grouches so….

I did what any mom would do…I MOMMY’d UP!  Because us mom, we rock like that and kick ass.  We can have interrupted sleep and get up 5 times a night and somehow we make it work…most of the time.  I tell you, we’re freaks of nature, God’s gift to the world, we have something special ladies.

So last night, it was Friday, Cameron wanted to sleep out on the couch with me (the couch has become the bed for whoever has puppy patrol…it’s quite comfortable (when you have the longer end…see below) so don’t feel too bad for me).  I let Cam have a sleep out with me and he went off to sleep fairly quickly and then I sat and watched “Say Yes to the Dress” and random infomercials until midnight (I totally want the Tobi Steamer for our clothes now, I am so sold. SO sold!).

I got a couple of hours of shut eye and then it was on.  Puppy patrol.  Then it was daughter patrol. I went and tucked her back in.  Found her, her stuffed puppy (the LOVE of her LIFE!) and got her back to sleep.  I gave puppy some water, a chewy and I headed back to sleep.  For ten minutes, until the puppy HAD to go out AGAIN.

“OMG, pup, do it all at once, be efficient! For God’s sake!”

Then at 5 a.m. as I was trying my hardest to fall back into slumber land when I heard a tiny voice down the hall.

“Mommy?”

“Maaaahhh-meeeeee”

It was Leah.  She was awake.  I mean wide-open-as-though-it-was-10 a.m. AWAKE.  I took her out to the couch with me.

So here I was with Cameron snoozing happily on one section of our corner couch and I on the other. I was on the shorter end…mind you.  So, from my knees to my toes, my legs were hanging over the arm of the couch. And now I had Leah too.

I had to lay on my side, with my ass literally hanging off the couch, I mean not an ounce of it was on the couch, people.  Not an ounce.  My feet were curled up now, as I tried to spoon my little one and get something that resembled rest.  To get comfy I threw my arm over Leah to hold her (and to hold on for dear life, since a LARGE portion of me was NOT actually ON the couch).  I wasn’t sure if my arm was too heavy so I took it back.

But no sooner, did little Leah grab my arm and place it back over her.  She then gave it a rub and couple of sweet pats.  Just like a little mama. So sweet.  So so sweet.

Reassurance, love, and cuddles with my little girl…it was an awesome moment.

And that right there.  That rub of my arm.  That pat to say “I love you”. That made this crazy co-sleeping situation all the better and all worth it and one I wouldn’t have had if my dear husband HAD had the balls to get up with the dog and still put on a smiling face and fake it the next morning….like so many of us moms do.

Oh what a night. A very crazy, busy, crowded and FULL OF LOVE night.

Now, I’m off to get me some coffee….

disclosure…the Tobi steamer people did not pay me for placement…although I’d totally be up for trying that baby, if they’d like. And yes, there may be spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in this post. Don’t kill me. I’ll try and find them after I have consumed copious amounts of java and  the sun is up…it’s still dark here, as I sit with my daughter on one side of me, awake and watching t.v., my son on the other side, still snoozing away (oh to be HIM!) and the roosters just starting to crow…

We’ve been co-sleeping in our house since Cameron was born.  Since the first night in the hospital he has slept next to me. It was done very intentionally.  I used a lot of attachment parenting techniques with Cameron (I think it was my way of over compensating for not breastfeeding him longer than 6 weeks)  

We’ve gone through a ton of things throughout the years to try and wean him (and perhaps me) off of co-sleeping, including doing cry-it-out or “Ferberizing” when he was a young lad…it soooooo did not work and just made him really pissed and a tad distrustful and left me (and all of our neighbors) NOT sleeping and feeling like crap.

Anyhow, we still co-sleep…with Cam…my BIG and tall and takes-up-a-ton-of-room-in-the-bed, almost five year old. 

I have a love/hate relationship with co-sleeping.  Many nights I love snuggling with my kiddo.  I sleep. He sleeps. And I’ve sorta given up as long as we’re sleeping. 

Anyhow, last night I was sleeping with Cameron, hubby was in the other bedroom (yes…we’re totally like Lucy and Desi and don’t sleep together most nights…we’re ready to start sleeping in the same bed again and operation GET CAM OUT OF THE BED! will be underway soon…see more below)

So back to my story…last night Cam was sleeping, I was sleeping and I heard Leah yelling for me.  I went and grabbed her, got her some milk and went to put her back into her crib but she protested.  She wanted to sleep with Mommy too.  

Now, I have purposefully made it so that Leah is a non-co-sleeping child…I just can’t sleep with two squirmy kids in my bed. And she did get breastfed…for 22 months…maybe I overcompensated with extended breastfeeding since I didn’t co-sleep with her…oh the mommy guilt!

So last night, I gave in and found myself in between two kids, who each had pillows on the outside of them, so they don’t fall off the bed and me in the very tiny spot in the middle….like a Mommy Sandwich.

That lasted for a few minutes when I had to banish myself to the foot of the bed…like a dog that lays at your feet…yeah, I was that dog, laying perpendicular to the bed, my toes hanging off the edge.

I couldn’t sleep.  So instead I sat there looking at my two kids.  Smiling to myself and listening to their breathing patterns.  Watching them both holding their lovies for dear life and sleeping so soundly.  These are the times I LOVE co-sleeping…I get to peek through my tired eyes and see them when they are the most relaxed, comfortable and QUIET!  It melts my heart.

So tonight, Leah WILL be back in her bed and the plan for OPERATION GET CAMERON IN HIS BED will be made soon.  I need to put two kids in one room and have them both sleep…not play or keep one another up…

Have any tips for this mom?  

Did you co-sleep?  Do you co-sleep? 

Got any funny stories?  How did you finally stop?

(one of the worst things for me and co-sleeping is that I find myself waiting to use the bathroom way longer than I should…scared that the bed with creak and I’ll wake up my son who will then yell for me and thus wake up my daughter who will then cry for me and then I will forever be…a Mommy Sandwich…see, I told ya, it’s a love/hate relationship!)