No Rest for the Wicked

I've never been one to require a lot of sleep, I can get by on about five to six hours a night...but I'm normally running at a deficit.  As weeks wear on I usually hit a point when I crash.  I fall asleep on the couch at about 7PM and I sleep through until the next morning.  Even so, I prefer not to sleep, or so I thought.  Lately I've been getting far less than I require.  I'm up every couple of hours for night feedings or to help a cranky sleeper roll on to her side.  The worst part of it is...the twins aren't even in the picture yet.

At this point, my wife is as large as a nine month pregnant woman of a singleton (this from her doctor during our last appointment).  She doesn't sleep more than two hours before she needs to either change to a more comfortable position or get up to use the washroom because one of the girls is using her bladder like a bean bag chair.  In either case, she can't do it alone.  Swinging her legs over the side of the bed and sitting up is a two person job requiring scaffolding and a construction crane to be erected... 

Between roll overs and pee breaks my wife often wakes hungry.  And though I try to convince her that she should eat one of the baby books she keeps next to the bed, or some of the foliage off one of the bedroom plants, that just seems to make her angry (which is even worse for me because she can't just turn over and give me a swat.  I actually have to get out of bed and walk around to her side so that she can punch me in the arm.)  I end up zombie walking downstairs to the refrigerator to pour a huge glass of milk, knowing full well that this amount of liquid in her squished bladder is going to equate to another bathroom trip in few hours.

We've had a king sized bed since the day we moved in together.  If anyone was to ask me how large a king sized bed is, I honestly would not be able to answer.  Based on the amount cottony real estate that I get to use, however, I'd have to guess that they are not designed for two people to share.  Now that she is pregnant, I've lost a good portion, of even that meager space, to her pillow fort.  There are pillows shaped like wedges of cheese, pillows so soft that they must be filled with baby ducks, and pillows especially designed for hugging and cuddling.  That huggy pillow is the worst.  At night I hear it whispering to her, trying to convince her that I'm really not necessary at all and that she would be far happier if it was just to two of them.  I never sleep with my back to that pillow.  Never!

It's all good practice though.  I doubt I'll ever sleep a whole night through again.  When the girls arrive, they'll spend the first six months in our room.  I sleep very lightly but I've been warned that babies are noisy sleepers.  Once they are out of our room, and in the nursery, I'll spend the next several years protecting them from the monsters in their closet (which, I'll inform the children, I only keep in there because they are to vicious to allow free roam of the house).  The years after that, will surely be devoted to nightly vigilance in the front window.  I'll be waiting with my hands hovering over the porch light switch, ready to flick it on the moment romeo leans in for his good night kiss...and so help me, if either of my little girls even thinks about dating a huggy pillow...