"Mom can I lay by you?"

When we first got married in one of our conversations I had said  "I will never let kids sleep in my bed."  Then we had my nieces sleep over and one of them came in our room in the middle of the night and crawled into bed with us.  The next morning my husband said I thought you said you would never let kids sleep in our bed?  what happened to that?  I felt bad for her and I was too cold and tired to get out of bed to go put her back in her sleeping bag.   Oh well it will be different with my kids.

Fast forward a few years and it is a frequent occurrence now sadly.  I never realized just how tired I would get.  Like last night for example my son who is 3 was on my husbands side of the bed and at some point during the night my 4 year old was sleeping on my side of the bed.  During the night one of the times I was up with my 10 month baby I even tried to get him to sleep in my bed with me because I was so tired I just wanted to sleep.  He would have none of it.  Oh how things have changed.  I just want to sleep.

Funny how a few years and kids change those statements and ideas I had as a young newlywed.  I have to admit sometimes its nice to cuddle and have your little ones close.  But in general I prefer they sleep in their own beds, because usually I don't sleep well with them wiggling around, poking, hitting and kicking me. My daughter is a mover so she will kick me or end up moving sideways making it impossible to sleep at all.  I remember when my husband used to work out of town I would want my daughter to sleep with me to feel better.  I felt like she was safer to be with me and I hate sleeping alone.  This is my daughter when she was little and she would sleep with me.

I now realize that you just never know when or how things are going to happen and my "plans" are going to change.  My idea of parenting has changed and evolved a lot since I actually had kids of my own.  I had all sorts of fun ideas of how life would be when I had my own little family.   Things are not always what I plan.  Some things are so much better than I ever imagined and some are...... well different, harder, and unexpected.   Welcome to Parenthood.