i'm.crowded.roll.over

We could easily sing the "5 little bears in the bed" song each morning in our house. I'll say it (not that I'm proud of it), but I rarely get out of bed before my children.

Josh gets up before it's even considered morning (still the middle of the night in my book). He's up somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30...ick.

Amelia is always next up. She climbs into bed with me and brings with her a few items: pillow, bunny, giraffe, taggie, and about 20 books. Once she gets in bed (mind you, it's still dark outside), she says, "Read to me!" Ummmm....no. I tell her that it's still time to be sleeping. Thankfully, she almost always goes back to sleep. Unfortunately, she takes up 1/2 of our queen sized bed with all of her stuff.

Next comes Meredith. She climbs into bed right next to me on the right side. Amelia is on my left (in the center of the bed). And I just want to sing a little ditty to the baby...."here I am, stuck in the middle with you..." Meredith goes right back to sleep.

Finally comes Claire. Amelia is always awake when Claire is ready to get into bed with us. She always shouts at Claire, "No Claire, my pot!" (Pot=spot). Amelia eventually decides (every morning) that having Claire in bed too isn't the worst thing in the world. She scoots over, pats the bed, and says, "Right here, Claire." Claire climbs in.

We all lay there for about 5 minutes. Everyone talks about how squished they are...except me....although I truly feel like I'm the most squished of everyone. It wouldn't even be so bad if Amelia would take all of her stuff out of the bed! :) Then we read or talk or whatever. There's really no more sleeping at this point.

But this is our routine every morning. It's predictable. It's memorable. It's us. And I know it won't last forever.

Well, this moring, once Claire was situated, she looked over at Amelia. She says, "I love you, Amelia. You're so sweet." Amelia replies in the sweetest voice, "Tanks."

These are the parts of life that I love and want to remember. Oh, and once baby arrives? Well, we might need a bigger bed!