Who's the Boss?

Remember that show? So cool, but pretty unrelated to my post, except for the fact that we seem to be asking that question a lot around here lately.

The baby has reduced my husband and me to sleeping on the floor in our home. Yep. Our perfectly good bed goes unused for an hour or three a night.

Don't ask me why, but the kiddo is still sleeping in our room. He's nearly a year old. It's totally time to end this and get him in the third bedroom we've been so dutifully holding in our home for him. But in our room he sits...or lies.

This summer, Matthias had a really nasty fever that lasted for three days. He was so clingy and teary that we didn't have the heart to make him sleep in his own bed. He ended up sleeping in the majority of our bed, while my husband and I teetered precariously on the edges of our respective sides so we wouldn't squish him. Then,we went camping, and he slept between us on our queen air mattress. Then we went to visit my husband's family, and he slept between us on that queen bed. Then we went to see my parents and he slept between us on that queen size bed. He felt like a little king (but didn't know kings actually sleep even better still).

And so, I'm sure you've noticed the foundation for our sleeping trouble.

When vacation ended, we put His Majesty back in his decidedly smaller bed and he waged a screaming war against the tyrants who had dared reduce him to such squalor. We didn't give in, though, and he eventually went to sleep until 2:30 a.m. Then he started again and we were too tired to fight. Into our bed he came.

The next night was much of the same. Scream and go to sleep. Scream at 2:30 and get in the big bed. Repeat nightly for about three weeks.

This week, the husband and I decided to take our bed back. Matthias, however, still got up at 2:30. The first night of our coup, I was wrestling the baby for so long that my husband finally hissed, "Either pull him in or we'll have to leave."

We left.

To the baby's room.

There aren't big beds in babies' rooms. In fact, ours houses Jackson's old toddler bed, which is waiting for Matthias to use it. Dear husband curled up on that, I fell on the floor, and we both covered up our arms with the tiny baby blankets stored in there.  The baby screamed for an hour, and we managed to doze somehow. (It's possible that nobody else in our building did.)

We stumbled back into our bed at 4:30 a.m. By 5, we were stumbling back to the baby's room again.

Repeat the next night.

He went down without a fight on night three. When 2:30 rolled around, he stood up in his bed, peered over the edge, extended a chubby little hand and whimpered, but we didn't move. He hollered a little, and we still didn't move. Then he flopped back down and went to bed. It was a sweet little revolution on our part.The next few nights continued with his smaller pleas until he finally gave up and went back to sleep.

Last night, though? Something went wrong. He was back to the same loud protesting, trying to convince the neighborhood that he's abused.

But we're not using that toddler bed anymore. No. We're far too tired, and 30 really is too old for that sort of thing. We threw our pillows onto the floor on the opposite side of our bed, pulled off the top blanket, slithered onto the floor and went to sleep.