Co-sleeping will never be my cup of tea.

Oh, hi there.

Meet Max.

Max is Verner's, excuse me, The DIZZLE'S adorable little 3-year-old nephew.

Yes, that's right. That blonde hair, blue-eyed little boy is 1/4 Black. 

It truly amazes us all, too. ;)

We love Max. Max loves us. In fact, I think it's fair to say Max loves ME a little more than his Uncle Verner, but that's neither here nor there...

Anyway.

This weekend, we had AirBnB guests stay at our place, so we trekked down to Noe Valley to stay with The Dizzle's oh-so-gracious sister and brother-in-law and put in some quality family time, of course.

The guest bed that we sleep in is upstairs in Max's room, where he has his own little crib-turned-toddler bed thing as well. So, no biggie, the plan was to put Max to bed first, and then later that night, The Dizzle and I would quietly sneak into his room to go to bed ourselves.

Because I'm quite the visual person myself, I thought I'd draw up this extremely talented layout for you so you can visualize with me:

Okay. So. Now that you have your visual - we can move on with the story!

Around 8:30, bedtime stories were read, Max was put to bed, all was well.

Then, around 10:30pm (because we're now officially OLD people), The Dizz and I went upstairs to hit the hay as well.

Fast asleep and fast forward to 2:00am-ish, we wake up to hear this little pitter-patter of feet get up out of Max's bed, across the room, and then climbs up onto the bed.

Max looks at Verner, half-asleep, and says, "Daddy?"

To which Verner replies, "No, it's Uncle Verner."

Then Max plops down in-between us and says to me, "Mommy?"

And I say, "No, it's Michelle."

Then Max stares at us for about 0.2 seconds and promptly falls deep asleep, right square in the middle, with a deep, heavy sigh.

Here we are:

So again, no big deal. He's just so stinkin' cute, and he wanted to come cuddle in bed, fine. Let's all get back to a deep, restful sleep and dream of rainbows and butterflies!

Or how about let's NOT.

About an hour later, I get my first knee in the back.

A few minutes later, a slap to the face.

Followed by a kick in the butt.

It wasn't long before we found ourselves in this sleeping situation:

Just as I'm about to fall asleep again, squirm, squirm, squirm, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

The final kick to the chest made me sit straight up in bed and say, gently, of course, "Okay, Max, I think it's time for you to go back to Max's bed now."

And without a word from him, he gets out of bed and pitter patters across the floor back to his bed!

Well shoot, if I knew it was that simple, I would have done that an hour earlier!

But no, my friends, it was not quite that simple.

Precisely one minute later, I hear, "Michelle?" (Except he says it in this super adorable way that sounds like this: 'Mah-sell?")

"Yes, Max?"

"I need my bwanket."

"Okay, where is it?"

"Down there."

'Down there,' turns out, was at the foot of his bed and he needed help pulling it up over him.

So out of bed I got, thumped my way across the floor, and tucked him in.

One minute later, I hear, "Mah-sell?"

(I told you he likes me better.)

"Yes, Max?"

"I have to go potty."

"Okay, you can get up and use your potty."

Pitter patter - potty time on his little potty - back to bed.

Just as I thought all was well for us at 3 IN THE MORNING, I hear again, "Mah-sell?"

"Yes, dear, darling, sweet child, Max, what can I do for you?"

"I need my flashlight."

Flashlight? Huh? What flashlight? What is this child doing?! Is he sleep talking?

Oh, nope. There's a flashlight there. And because I can't possibly say no to this little one, I give him the flashlight.

To which he spends the next 30 minutes, until he passes out, doing this:

In case you can't tell what my professional drawing is portraying, it is beams of light directly into my EYES as he performs shadow puppets on my face.

I contemplated taking the flashlight away, I truly did. But I mean, what if playing shadow puppets with his flashlight in bed at night is his one childhood memory that sticks with him for life and I just went and took that away?! I couldn't...I wouldn't...I didn't...

So, finally, slowly, we all went to sleep.

And in the morning, as I awoke puffy eyed and delirious from my lack of sleep, that's when I knew.

Co-sleeping will never be a part of my life.

I don't care if the internet portrays it to be magical and intimate like this:

You can't tell me THIS is magical or intimate in any way, shape, or form:

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

And a note to you, dear, sweet Max, I look forward to our slumber parties to come, I truly do. But next time, I'll come with some extra padding to absorb the blows from your forceful uppercuts and knee jabs. ;)

Love, Mah-sell

xoxo