An Ingenious Plot Crashes and Burns

I have a stunning admission to make this morning. I am a failure. Actually, Ruanita and I are failures. The plot we hatched a few week back has been a colossal bomb. The plan that was supposed to change our lives as we know it...the plan that we expected to bring peace and harmony back to our household....has crashed and burned. As I chug coffee and peer at my computer screen through the one eye I am able to pry open this morning, I am in mourning. I am exhausted and I am mourning the loss of a cunning plan gone terribly wrong.

Remember how I wrote triumphantly a few weeks ago about Santa's ingenious plan to bring the children sleeping bags for Christmas? I thought sleeping bags would be the be-all and end-all answer to our bedtime woes. Rather than all three children climbing into our bed at night, we could direct them to their sleeping bags on our bedroom floor. Rather than waking to the distinct and agonizing sensation of a pointy little elbow jabbing me in the base of the skull and a head full of dirty blonde hair up my nostrils at 3:00AM, I had visions of waking to the sound of birds singing and the warmth of early morning sunshine wafting in through my windows. I envisioned waking well-rested and relaxed after a solid eight to nine hours of deep REM sleep. Unfortunately, I underestimated my foe. I was naive. My bravado got the best of me.

Leave it to my children to find a way to circumvent the perfect plan. They saw our plot for what it was...an attempt to rid our bed of our beloved children. And they fought back with the full arsenal of weapons at their disposal. They began by spacing their arrivals in our bedroom perfectly to prevent us from hitting that deep sleep that is needed for complete rest and rejuvenation. The order in which they arrive changes nightly, but the timing is exact, down to the minute. One arrives at midnight, followed by another and 2:30am, and the third at precisely 4:30am...an hour before my alarm clock is set to go off. Rather than simply rolling over and making room for them in our bed as we have done in the past, we must now drag ourselves out of bed, spread out their sleeping bags on the floor, and tuck them in. When I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without my glasses on, I will step on whichever child has managed to roll halfway under my bed, causing them to yelp out in pain and need to be soothed and re-tucked. Inevitably, we will have to get up a bit later to lock the cat in the office, as she will begin to nip at their heads. Why don't we just leave the sleeping bags on the floor at the ready all the time? That is a question I have asked, as well. However, Ruanita, in her infinite cleanliness, has a maniacal, debilitating need to make our bed and put away the sleeping bags each day. Luckily, I do not suffer from this cleanliness affliction.

The whole premise behind the sleeping bags was to have our children come to the realization that their beds are a comfortable and safe place to sleep. Certainly, they are more comfortable than sleeping in a bag on our hard bedroom floor. At least, one would think. My children, however, are cunning. They are survivalists. I honestly believe they would sleep in the dirt on the floor of the Amazonian rainforest if it would prove their parents wrong. They are stubborn. They are willing to go the distance to spoil our plan. Unfortunately, I must admit that their stamina is greater than my own.

So what do we do now? Where do we go from here? Do we continue with the failed sleeping bag tactic? Do we admit defeat and allow our children back into our bed? Do we lock our bedroom door and wear earplugs to block out the screaming and incessant banging that will certainly ensue?

It really sucks when your children are smarter than you.