The Sparest of Spare Rooms*

We had a “home day” today.

We normally attend church on Sunday mornings and I don’t like to miss, but we were all so burnt out and tired that we decided just to take it easy. M still wasn’t feeling great and P has H’s cough of last week, so we thought we’d spare our friends and keep it to ourselves. Whenever we have a day to be at home, the kids call them “home days”. They count down each week to Friday when they know they and M (and now me I guess!) will all have two home days with no school or work.

It was really nice to have the extra home day this weekend.

We had a slow start this morning, then I took the kids for a walk down to the beach so we could bask in the sunshine. I sat and listened to the waves crash on the shore, and P and H went to work trying to throw every rock on the beach into the water. S was busy constructing the world’s best sand castle, until she realized it required water to stay up and had no means to get the water from the lake to her building spot.

Life is hard. *sigh*

I was a bit done in after lunch and had a wee nap on the couch while the big kids watched a movie. Now that our bedroom reno is underway, all of our things are moved into the upstairs playroom and M & I are sleeping in “Grandma’s Room” in the basement. We are also slowly but surely trying to finish our basement, and currently have one room mostly completed. It serves both as M’s office and our spare room, so we have a place for company to come and stay… and the kids’ named it after their favourite visitor. Even though we built it almost 5 years ago, I’ve actually never slept in it. It’s not a huge room, but it’s cozy with M’s desk and a double bed.

We’ve since updated it to a new frame and mattress, but for the first while it was actually our old bed down there. When we first got married, we were broke students with very little furniture (or money) to our names. I had only ever had a single bed, and M had a double bed from his childhood home so we figured it just made sense to keep that rather than buy a new one. I remember at first it felt huge to me, and we actually used it happily for the first six years of our marriage. I know it’s kind of “the thing” to have a king sized bed, but we were happy with our little double for a long time.

…then I got pregnant.

As my belly grew that little bed grew smaller and I finally asked for an upgrade as it was tight with two and a half people in that bed. We transitioned to our current queen sized bed, and our double went to the spare room. I fell in love with our new bed almost immediately, even though I’ve not spent nearly as much time as I would have liked over the past few years. (My children don’t sleep. *sob*)

It’s funny how much we attach ourselves to our beds. I’m at the point now where I have to seriously consider whether or not I want to stay over somewhere because I know I will sleep better in my own bed. I think this is the stage of life they call “old”.

So yesterday we packed up our bed and bedroom furniture, and last night was our first night sleeping in the spare room. Part of me was excited–I always think of Anne of Green Gables whenever I think about spare rooms (as long as they are the sparest of spare rooms), but I was also nervous about being two floors away from the kids. P has started just opening the door and wandering out half asleep to find me, and then I carry / snuggle him back to his bed. As much as I’d like him to sleep through every night, the sleepy snuggles are kind of amazing. I’m not mad about it.

I brought a monitor down last night, but between being in the new bed, being worried about hearing the kids, and you know, just being a mom and no longer being able to sleep, I didn’t sleep terribly well. I heard P start to get up at 5am, and I slipped up the stairs to get him back into bed. By the time I left his room, I decided just to call it quits and crash on the couch. So, not the best first night, but I’m hoping night two will be better. I think we’ll be down there for a week or two, so I’d better adjust! Ah.

Does anyone else suck at sleeping in not their own bed?