Sweet Sibling Moment

When I was a kid, my younger brother and I fought. We played together a lot (necessitated by the fact that we lived in the middle of nowhere, miles from any other kids), but we fought, too. I can remember my mom telling us "when you grow up, you'll want to spend time together" and we would roll our eyes. Now that we're grown, we DO like to spend time together (well, at least I like to spend time with him... I'm not positive it goes the other way, but I think it does).

So when C. and T. would bicker, I knew it was really just one of those things that siblings do. And they still argue and get on each other's nerves. But T. and M. are unbelievable! I know that she loves him more than anything, and just wants to be near him and wants his attention. And he has his moments where he'll allow her to watch him play gameboy or will help her read a book. But there is a LOT (and I mean a lot) of screaming exchanges between them and sometimes I wonder if they will ever be nice to each other.

OK, so here comes the actual story.

M. has been sleeping in our bed since birth. The other kids did the same and we really, really like having a family bed. But there comes a time where not a lot of sleep is going on in the family bed. It's been working that way for a few months now and we've carefully set the stage for M's eventual move out of our bed. The plan is for her to sleep on T's bottom bunk (it's a full-sized futon) until we re-do the upstairs and then C. will move downstairs into the big bedroom, which she will share with M. Good in theory, at least. Well, after two nights of very little sleep on my part due to teeth grinding, sleep-thrashing, and overheating on M's part, I was ready to try something else.

Yesterday we told M. that the bottom bunk is her bed and that she could have G. or I lie down with her in her bed until she fell asleep, or she could fall asleep in our bed and we would then move her to her bed. She said "no". (typical M. response) I emphasized that "no" wasn't one of her choices. She eventually said she'd fall asleep in our bed and let us move her. Done.

At about 1:30 in the morning, I heard her calling "mom... mom..." By the time G. and I got into the bedroom, T. had woken up and was crawling down the bunk ladder, talking to her, saying "mom's not here...I'm here" and he crawled in bed with her and they both fell back asleep.

awww....

maybe they will want to spend time with each other when they're grown. :)