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" Why is everyone in my bed!!! It starts out the same way every night \u2013 my daughter whines that she just wants to lay with me &amp;quot;for a little while.&amp;quot; I respond firmly that she needs to be in her bed, it&amp;#039;s a school night, and besides, her brother won&amp;#039;t sleep without her (which is true). They climb in bed together, and within an hour, he&amp;#039;s asleep and she&amp;#039;s sneaking into my room. We end up having some girl talk that usually ends up with a lot of laughing and cuddling, and I&amp;#039;m a sucker for it. Anna doesn&amp;#039;t get much one-on-one Mom time, and after her brother falls asleep, it&amp;#039;s like our time to connect. Finally, I insist that she close her eyes, she falls asleep, and so do I. That is, until sometime between 2:45 and 4:30 am, when David wakes up, finds her gone, and comes barreling into my bedroom, flinging the door open with such force that it bounces off the wall and I sit up in the bed with a shriek, clutching my chest as my heart pounds in terrified rhythm. I groggily roll out of bed, he rolls in next to Anna, and I try to reposition myself around his knees in my lower back. Sometime after that, I decide that I really can&amp;#039;t sleep with an elbow in my throat, and I move to the bottom of the bed, hoping my daughter&amp;#039;s feet won&amp;#039;t end up in my face too often. I doze off, finally able to sort-of stretch out, until the last culprit invades my bedroom. Beatrix the cat decides it&amp;#039;s time for her 6am scratch behind the ears, and she will not take &amp;quot;no&amp;quot; for an answer, butting her head against mine or lightly biting my fingertips till I comply. If I&amp;#039;m lucky, she&amp;#039;ll lose interest after ten minutes, and I&amp;#039;ll get five minutes of sleep before the alarm goes off. Single motherhood brings a lot of sacrifices. Sleep is one of them, I guess. Do they make child gates big enough to keep out a nine year old and a six year old? With whirling cat-scratching attachments? Maybe I could get rich inventing one! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/a45396/there-were-four-in-the-bed-the-mommy-said-2006/>