anyone have a couple slings in xxxxxl?

Boy, you can take the kids out of co-sleeping, but it's proving impossible to take the co-sleeping out of the kids. By now, our epic history of nine years together is known by all, and I proudly blogged several months ago about the kids' transition into their own beds. Well, in all fairness, I think a partial retraction is warranted, because the kids still seem bewildered each night when I attempt to shepherd them into their room. I come from a long line of nightowls, who must have a few hours at night to read, fold laundry, watch TV (who, me?), or just flatline in the comfort of some hard-won solitude. But my darlings Quinn and Reilly apparently equate being sent to bed with me biting off their umbilical cords and sending them down the proverbial river. Sigh. They will use every ploy they possess to persuade me to let them sleep in the living room next to me, and often succeed primarily because Reilly is a master at finding that one strand of a heart string I forgot to shield. "Mom we have to sleep out here because I just spent the night with Gia (my mom)." In fairness, she certainly has no problem spending five consecutive nights with my mom, as well she shouldn't. But bring the girl home, and suddenly she will develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder if she can't sleep in my nostrils. Score one for Rei with the "I just spent the night with Gia" tactic. Another maneuver they use with startling success, it to ask to "sit by" me for "just a while longer," to which I also have no defense because they're so sweet in their jammies, six feet tall, trying to pile on top of me on our ever-falling-apart couch. Sometimes they need to sleep with me because it's raining, or because there's folded laundry on their beds that they're too tired to put away, or because Reilly suspects a migraine might be on its way. "Yes, okay." "Yes, okay." "Yes, okay." After a day spent overseeing chores, lessons, appropriate clothing, flossing, and fighting, it feels so good to be revel in them. I know it's in their best interest to have a bedtime routine and that their pillow-top mattresses are so much better for them than the floor, but jeez, it's so hard to say no to Dalmatian slippers and to a boy giant clutching his prized stuffed animal mushrooms. (These can be seen in the picture below, carefully covered in a blanket) So get off my back okay? That's where my kids sleep!


(I'm sure Todd's relishing his $800 investment in bunk beds...actually, he too feels that kids sleeping on their own is totally counter-intuitive, so he's cool.)