never leave the nest.

Dear Punky Pie,

Most days I wake up to you staring at me and smiling, which I think is very polite, considering the alternatives. We all sleep in one bed together, you, me, Daddy, and Russell, which I was kind of embarrassed about, and definitely afraid to tell your pediatrician about until I found out that it actually has its own movement centered around the practice. It is actually part of a parenting philosophy. But I will be honest with you, since you are my baby. It has more to do with the fact that you still eat yourself to sleep and it is easier to do this when I'm lying down [since we both have roughly the same bed time these days] and that I think I would miss you if you slept away from me. So there you have it, a parenting decision centered around laziness and selfishness. PERFECT. We're off to a great start.


Your dad, however, is not so lucky. Not only does he come to bed later and therefore get last dibs on the available space, but you like to wake him when we get up [approximately 8 am, since you don't know how to tell time yet] by slapping his back and arms, and also scritching at him. It is not quite scratching, as in you don't leave claw marks [a whole nother story about this later], but just a light and gentle scritch, like maybe you are trying to get something you spilled off of your sweater. I think it is very cute.


Then you whip back around to face me again. I don't know if you've mastered the concept yet that even if you can't see us both at the same time, we are still in the room.


Then you check on Daddy again.


Then you reach for the camera and say, "Leave me alone already, I just woke up."

But seriously, you don't say that because you don't know how to talk yet, or even understand English all that well outside of your own name. But that's okay, because you are a baby.

Awhile back, me and your Daddy were having a small turf war in the middle of the night, each of us insisting the other [and our respective posse] was taking up entirely too much room. I threatened to get a twin bed and sleep with you in your room. This is how serious I am about sleeping with you. I will try and limit myself to an appropriate length of time for this, but I can't make any promises. The boundaries are not as clear for this as, say, breast feeding, which in my opinion, is obviously once the child has a name for your breasts and can ask for milk, the time has come. I figure by the time you are in grade school we will have this all hammered out, don't you?

Love you, little cuddle bug,
Mama