I Sleep in My Bed

“I sleep in my bed at my house,” Adella pronounces.  It is her opening statement of the day as she awakes in Granma’s bed. It is the second time in a week she has begun the day with that announcement, so I assume it is important for her. Perhaps it is her way of wrapping her three-year-old mind around the fact that once again she is greeting the morn in Granma’s bed, not her own nor her parents’.

But Adella does not always sleep in her bed at her house. I know for a fact that last night she slept most of the night in her parents’ bed. When she dropped her babies off, her mother had proudly celebrated the fact that nine-month-old Marshall had once again slept through the night. But before I could offer my congratulations, Chrissy preempted me by noting that victory did not translate into more sleep. Adella had crept into her parents’ bed in the middle of the night and had spent the rest of the night migrating among its four corners.

“But sometimes you sleep in your mommy’s bed,” I respond.

“No, I sleep in my bed.”

Then she added, “Marshall sleeps in his bed.” (This is true. Mom and Dad have grown much wiser with child number 2.) “Daddy and Mommy sleep in their bed.” And then she launches into the hospital story about when her mother went to the hospital to “pick up” Marshall.

Then she is up, off and running, with Marshall crawling up the rear. I am left to ponder Adella’s world as I watch them embrace the day. A psychologist would tell me that Adella is beginning to internalize her family values. Her mother values that Adella sleep in her own bed. Her father values that she sleep in her own bed. She begins each night in her bed. And she knows her parents want her to sleep all night in her own bed.

Adella inhabits a happy-go-lucky, three-year-old world that blurs the lines between the real and imaginary. She plays with Enga, her blue-haired, imaginary friend, on the landing of my stairs. And she does have her own “adventures,” in the mountains no less, when she shuts Marshall and me out of my bedroom. (Oh how she will love The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.) And in that world, she does sleep in her bed. Every night.

I do not yet comprehend her world and probably never will. It evaporates if I seek to enter it. Yet for her this world is well defined. One day I ask her where Enga lives. I am hoping for a description of a turreted forest castle or a snowy mountain chalet or a cozy seaside cottage. Adella, however, is a little put out by my asking such an obvious question. She answers matter-of-factly, “With her family.”

Her tone tells me I should be satisfied.  And I suppose I am. Satisfied Adella understands what is most important: the world of her family.