Sleep Wars Episode II: Attack of the Toddler

Previously on Sleep Wars I talked about the joys of co-sleeping in Japan and how a thunderstorm can make life entertaining. At the end, I claimed I had won the battle... Fool, thy name is Daddy for the toddler has come on the attack.

Hikaru has decided that he no longer likes his futon, or Beloved's futon. No, instead for the last few nights he has taken to falling asleep on my futon, usually after the aforementioned round of attempting to steal my reading light, or sitting on my back.

It's hot, I sleep shirtless in the Japanese summer heat and usually read on my stomach. Hikaru of course thinks "Horsey!"

Now, sleeping with your son isn't that bad, really. For all the brat compacted into his small frame, Hikaru is cute and he is one of my sons. But... well, both my sons take after their mother.

Yeah, kinda like this...

Beloved, as I have mentioned, is a wonderful woman... who masses about half of what I do and is a good half foot shorter. And yet, somehow, whenever we share bed space (Or even when we don't), she somehow manages to migrate during the night and forces her larger husband off his futon, or crowds him into a small little sliver of the bed. This is not a woman who sleeps quietly.

BOTH Makoto and Hikaru do the same. Makoto will spend a good chunk of the night moving from his futon to mine, and then pushing me up against the wall. Adding Hikaru to the mixture just means there is NO escape, it now comes in two different directions.

The new sleeping tactic in the Sleep Wars is to attempt to stay awake long enough for Hikaru to get into a deep enough sleep that it becomes possible to move him back to Beloved's futon and then hope he STAYS there, or at least his nightly migrations perter out somewhere around the door and not across the room where I am. This does have some downsides, namely that it can take a long time for Hikaru to go to sleep and in the meantime, I get to be a horse to a happy, bouncing toddler while trying to read.

But it does have it's upside as well, like looking over to find Makoto sound asleep with his head off his futon, Hikaru asleep with his head on Makoto's legs, and Beloved sound asleep with her arms above her head and one knee sticking straight up and all three sawing enough "wood" that if it had been actual timber, we would have our winter fuel supply met for the next two years.

I would have taken a picture, except that I want to keep being able to sleep with my family and not outside.