Having my two nephews here instead of one Kiki changes the dynamic of the family. Mostly it means lots of joyful shrieking as three boys play video games. But another change became apparent when it came time to put the kids to bed. Obviously the two nephews wanted to sleep in Link’s room. They bracket him in age. Patches shares that room, so he obviously was going to sleep in there as well. This left Gleek, the lone girl. Gleek did not want to be left out, so I simply threw some foam pads down on the floor and let them all sleep there.
Getting them all to fall asleep is something of a challenge. They want to romp, I want them to sleep. So both nights so far have involved thumping and complaining and slamming of doors and shrieks and stolen pillows, and dire threats that I WILL separate them if they don’t settle down. Eventually they do fall asleep. When they do, I sneak in and look at them all. They’re all sprawled and variously piled like an adorable litter of puppies. And like puppies, they’re ready to go again the next day.
Even though we have just one child (daughter, 6 yr old), she has 4 cousins all born within 2 weeks of her (can’t think what was going on around December 31, 2000). So far, we’ve been able to sleep 5 little girls on our fold out futon couch but that was a couple years ago. As they get bigger, I’m thinking of putting in cork flooring in her bedroom and just plan on a really large pad for sleep overs. And lots of sound proofing. For some reason, little girls seem to get louder as they get older. Weird!