To each her own

Last night, we were a full house.  The sleeping arrangements were unusual, but all seemed to be going well.  Chris, Phoebe and Dave were on the two single sofabeds and the daybed in the living room, and Emily, Robyn and I were in the queensized bed that Dave and I usually share.

One side of that bed is firmed up with a nice piece of  foam, the other is fluffed up with soft things---mostly a featherbed that I adore.  The three of us started out well, Robyn and I on the soft side, Emily on the firm one; we were well-matched, but apparently, too close for Robyn's comfort.  Since she is about 24 inches tall, we thought that half a queensized bed would be plenty of room for her to do the up-down-swing-yourself-around thing that passes for sleep for her, but we were wrong.  So wrong, in fact, that Emily finally had to get up, denude the papasan of its many, many cushions, and make herself a bed on the floor.

I hated to see her do that, and offered to change places but she stayed there and Robyn and I continued to share the bed, she on the soft side, where she seemed happiest the last few times she'd slept in that bed, and me, on the firm side, leaning yearningly toward the soft.

We were none of us sleeping the sleep of the just, though, and after about 5 checks to make sure all was well, I finally turned over and went to sleep.  As soon as sleep was a fact for me, Robyn turned over and fell off the bed.  In the dark.  I was stunned even though I understood what was happening and tried to get my body caught up to my brain, but Em was over the bed, from the floor on the other side, so speedily that I hardly had time to blink.

Robyn seemed not to have anything major wrong with her, but she was shocked and outraged, and took a long time to calm down.  Emily and I lay on either side of her, both pretending to the other that we weren't counting Robyn's breaths or waiting for her going-to-sleep twitches to turn into convulsions.  I felt as awful as if I'd kicked the child out of bed, and being Emily's mother, I multiplied that by two.

Robyn is running around merrily today, a slight bruise on her nose, but Emily and I are exhausted, more than slightly bruised in the place where we keep our tenderness for our children.