We have a bit of a problem in this house with children staying in their own beds. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have gone to sleep and awoken in the morning without seeing 1-3 of my children. Sometimes I wake up and realize that someone else is sleeping with us…or several someone-elses.

We have been trying to use the “sleeping bag method” for midnight intruders (that being that I set up their sleeping bags on our floor and if the boys want to come in, they are welcome…but they can’t sleep in our bed). Logan especially, God love him. His elbow and knees literally turn into daggers at night and his little body has a way of becoming larger than life. He manages to take up at least 1/2 of a king-sized bed (which was, incidentally, purchased when we expecting Brady because we knew a queen wouldn’t hold up to 5 people). The sleeping bag method works pretty well, except that Logan will, almost hourly, check from his spot on the floor to make sure that the bed is still off limits…and of course he’s sleeping on the side closest to me so I have to sadly tell him that yes, the bed is only for mommy and daddy…and then after about 3 checks I just get cranky at him – poor kid.

Brian left for a week-long trip Sunday night so I was all alone. Logan came creeping into the bedroom around 1:30. Having not set up the sleeping bags and being tired and…a little lonely, I let him come on in. Well…then Aiden appeared around 3:30. That was fine because Logan had been instructed to settle the wiggles and keep his dagger elbows on daddy’s side. Aiden is a sweet little snuggler so we were all good. Round about 5:30, in comes Brady. He’s a “face me and let me breath on you” kind of snuggler. I waited about 10 minutes until he was out, slowly extracted myself, took a quick shot with my phone which was sitting bedside, and snuck off to my own little haven in the guest room. I heard the boys wondering where I had gone around 6:30.

Not a good shot by any means (iphone), but: Aiden is farthest to the left, then Brady is snuggled right up next to him. The tiny empty area next to him was my allotted space and you can just make out Logan’s head under the second orange pillow going to the right of the picture. Our bedding looks shiny with the camera flash!