Our youngest son just turned five and he is still sleeping in our bed. Yep, you read that right. He just loves crawling up on top of momma’s chest to fall asleep, I suspect Kim struggles to breath as he continually gets heavier and heavier day by day. “You are going to suffocate soon babe if we don’t get him out of our bed”, I say. ”He’s fine she says. I can breath just fine.” “Threes a crowd”, I reply. I go on to tease her about how it looks like he will finally leave once he turns 18 and moves off to college. HA! Of course his older brothers did the same thing. No, I don’t mean they are still sleeping in our bed. I mean they each left for their own rooms about age five or so. While it seems to me that she is ‘Clinging’ to Isaac in particular because he is our last child, she knows this will be her last time to enjoy the special times that come to a mother when raising a child while young. Several months ago while he was still four, we began diligent work toward getting him to join one of his brothers for the night. Failure after failure finally resulted in a successful night where he fell asleep alongside Jonah, or so it seemed. Right around 2 am, Kim bolted awake, “Isaac!” “Relax Kim, he is with Jonah, remember.” Off she ran to check on him, reluctantly returning to bed empty handed. Right then and there I knew that perhaps Kim still wanted him with us as much, if not more that he did. My efforts to convince Kim to get him out of our bed, simply another form of ‘Competing’ and attempts at ’Controlling’ my circumstances, continued for weeks upon weeks. Then something extraordinarily cool happened one night a few months ago as we slept. I found him crawling up on my chest rather than Kim’s. He must have gotten confused I thought. HA! Hmmmn, he doesn’t weigh as much as I thought after all. All of a sudden it sunk in. How cool, my last son is sleeping right here on top of me. How amazing to feel his breathing. So peaceful now. When awake he is an absolute maniac. I knew instantly, at least in part I imagine, why Kim loves him sleeping on her chest so much. Perhaps she wasn’t ‘Clinging’ after all, but rather thoroughly enjoying the last times we would experience this fleeting and very special time with him, our last child. Maybe ‘Being Flexible and Generous’ in this situation versus ‘Competing’ and simply ’Accepting’ him in our bed versus ‘Controlling’ makes far better sense, as I know that just like with his brothers, he will move on when the time is right. Why my rush? Wait, on second thought, don’t answer that. HA! Seriously though, doesn’t it make far better sense to just thoroughly enjoy this time in our lives. I will say that since that first time of crawling onto Daddy instead of Momma, the vast majority of nights he prefers to crawl up on Kim’s chest. Heck, I don’t blame him. Still, I always appreciate those few times he chooses Daddy, probably of course because he is simply tired and confused. Oh well. How lucky am I?
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