I have a king size bed. My husband and I bought it a few years back. But before you think that this is a good thing, let me just explain.
When my husband and I were first married, we slept on a full size bed. We didn’t think it was too small. Just like realtors who advertise a tiny house as quaint and cozy, that’s how we felt about our bed. Keep in mind we were also newlyweds and so the thought of feeling each other’s feet and intertwining legs under the covers was kind of sexy and very intimate. Of course, that was at a time in our marriage when we couldn’t get enough of each other and we were practically attached at the hip. But you get the picture…
Fast-forward a few years into our blessed union. We were elated at the birth of our first-born child and were determined to be perfect parents and so we never let the baby out of our sight. Our son slept very comfortably in a sleeper, positioned between the both of us on our bed. A few weeks of this and we quickly realized our full size bed was, indeed…full and not big enough for the three of us. Suddenly, cozy was not cutting it anymore. So we bought ourselves a queen size bed. Now by this time, we wore socks to bed and the only time our feet touched was to keep warm. As new parents, sex was something we saw briefly in an R rated movie which ending credits, if we were lucky, we stayed awake long enough to see roll down the TV screen.
Then my daughter was born and we found that our queen size bed was yet again… a full one! By now my son was a toddler and he had his own bed but every night he would sneak into ours. Four people sleeping in a bed made for two, even if two of the four made up the equivalent of one adult, was still crowding. My husband and I stayed at either end of the bed and if our legs found each other, we would swat them away with a gentle but firm kick.
Now, that we have our third child, we felt that it was time again to bite the bullet and buy the king size tempurpedic mattress –which the salesman insisted we could put a glass of wine in the middle of the bed and it wouldn’t spill or be dislodged. Naturally, that made the sale! How cool is it to drink wine in bed? Now, we have five people sleeping in our bed at any given time of night. It has become a sporting event where my husband and I take turns maneuvering our kids out of our beds and back into their own. We gently tell them that there are no monsters under their own beds –although sometimes one may be luring under ours-lightning cannot come through a closed window and the bogeyman does not have a key to our front door. We walk them bleary eyed to their own rooms. Most of the times, we are too exhausted to do any of that and we just give in and let them sleep in our bed curled up like circus people, assuming positions that only a contortionist would be able to. My husband and I are miles apart on this king size bed and our legs no longer can reach far enough to touch. Sex is now just a three-letter word that seems vaguely familiar to us. The other day, I woke up with a splitting headache to find a Pokemon toy jabbing my temple under my pillow.
Sigh. Its’ days like that when I really miss my full size bed.
Erin