Naptime in the family bed

Ah, naptime. To call it quits, right in the middle of the day. To drift off into nowhere for a while, just a little while, until you are needed again. To snuggle up to someone you love. To have someone snuggle up to you. To find that someone still sleeping next to you when you awake. Slow breath, softened face. Silence.

Oh, how I miss naptime in the family bed.

Until this fall, our Jack was a napper. We're talking two to three hour naps, every day. During my pregnancy with Charlie, Jack and I napped together every day. We'd snuggle in bed with a book around 1 p.m., and then cover ourselves up from toes to chins in too many blankets. Sometimes a little back would get a rub, sometimes a little leg would cross over a big leg. Sometimes one hand would hold another. And then, just sleep. Blissful sleep.

Sweet little Charlie came. And since the day he came home--even with four solid years of growing my own homemade mama wisdom--I haven't been able to get my two boys to nap at the same time. Not even for ten minutes. I recently took the boys on a flight to Denver with my sister and her daughter. On the flight there, my boys DID nap at the same time, Jack in his seat, Charlie in my arms. My sister looked across the aisle and noticed they were both conked out.

"Look," my sister whispered. "Your two are sleeping at the same time and you can't do anything--not even go to the bathroom!"

She was right. And my hypersonic fear of flying meant I couldn't even sleep along with them. Which is really all I've wanted to do since Charlie arrived. Sleep with both my babes in the middle of the day.

They say be careful what you wish for. It was a cruel moment--the realization that my dream of two boys napping had come true as I was silently screaming, hurtling through the air at 500 miles per hour, 30,000 feet above the earth. Strangely, though, the moment has given me hope. Remember in the movie Dumb and Dumber, when the leading lady tells Jim Carrey's character that he has a one in a million chance of hooking up with her? What does Jim's character say? He happily says, "So you're saying there's still a chance!" (Hey, sometimes you take hope wherever you can get it, even if it is from a film that has the word "dumb" in the title. Twice.)

What I'm saying is, it happened once. It can happen again. One of these days, the three of us--maybe even all four of us?--will be exhausted, all at the same time. We'll head to the family bed, tell a story or two, and then snuggle up just like this:

And sleep.