Saturday Night's Alright For Sleeping (Guest blogger Daddy)

So this might sound backwards, or worse, really bizarre. But every Saturday night, I crawl into bed with my three-year old daughter and fall asleep next to her. Not because she tells me to, but because I want to do it.

Backstory: my wife and I don’t sleep in the same bed currently. OH GOD YOU’RE GOING TO GET DIVORCED is probably the common reaction to that statement, but an inaccurate one. Or at least, it’ll be inaccurate until we do get divorced, then it’ll be like SEE IT’S BECAUSE YOU WERE IN SEPARATE BEDS.

We do have a king-sized bed (Is that bragging? I don’t think it’s bragging. Maybe?), and it would certainly accommodate me, Kelly, and the New Kid, and we did try that for a while. But while I enjoyed co-sleeping, I would usually wake up curled into a Cirque du Soleil position in a corner of the bed. And I had trouble sleeping. And that little succubus wouldn’t stop waking up and screaming for breasts that I unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) do not possess.

So we decided – not independently, mind you – that I would start sleeping in the extra bedroom. And let me tell you, it’s glorious. A whole bed to myself? I WANT TO GO TO THERE. If a newlywed asked me for three tips for a successful marriage, I would say “First, either zero or two televisions in the living room. Second, multiple comfortable beds that can be used for sleeping by yourself. Third, impossibly lowered expectations.” Then I would start crying uncontrollably. That should teach that person to not ask me stupid questions I don’t want to answer.

Anyway, I sleep in my own bed every night. It’s like being 12 again, minus the dread/exuberance of impending puberty. Except for Saturdays.

Quick(-ish) tangent: when we first moved to this house (which isn’t technically ‘new’ anymore, since we’ve lived in it over a year now), Kalaya was still sleeping with us. She was just over two years old, and, similar to her mother, was an Em-Effing SEASTAR when she slept. Love both of them, but holy crap can they take up a bed. 

We didn’t want to push her out of the bed so to speak (because we’re crazy liberal hippies who live the movie “Away We Go”), but it was getting a little too crowded. Lo and behold, when she saw she had her OWN bed in her OWN room, she dropped us like a bad habit. “I’m going to sleep in my bed tonight, dad.” A sentence that simultaneously liberated and destroyed me. On one hand, yay, more room in the bed! On the other hand, another step into independence from her parents, aka I DON’T NEED YOU ANYMORE.

So Kelly and I slept together in our own bed with just the two of us again. And boy, WE MADE UP FOR LOST TIME. And by that I mean sleeping. Literal sleeping. Sleeping is the best thing to do in a bed, regardless of what anyone says.

Back to Saturdays: my daughter is three and a half years old. This is a great, great time to be a dad. She’s still excited to see me when I get home. She stills runs up to me to give me a great big hug and kiss when I walk in the door (if I can beat her to opening the door, that is). I don’t think she stops talking to me from the time I get home until she falls asleep.

And it’s wonderful. There are a ton of reasons why I’ve wanted to be a daddy more than I’ve ever wanted to be anything else (except MAYBE for a professional baseball player, but clearly my semen is much more potent than my athletic ability), and this is definitely one of them. If Kalaya was a drug, I would have a serious addiction. (An addiction that would produce an infinitely bizarre episode of 'Intervention,' but an addiction nonetheless.)

But I know this isn’t going to last. She started pre-school this year. She speaks in more complete sentences than some of the college students I advise. She uses multiple syllable words in context. She’s like every kid her age: a growing, learning, incredible sponge. Pretty soon, she’ll be four, and then five, and then holy crap 18. And then she’ll move out, and I’ll realize she’ll never be coming back to live with us.

I don’t want to be that person who continually mourns the future, and in the process misses the present. I feel like I manage living in the moment, as it were, pretty well. Sometimes though, I can’t help but think that my first baby, my baby girl, is not going to need me as much at some point, and it’s probably going to happen when I’m not expecting it. And while I recognize that occurrence is a necessity for both of us, well, it doesn’t make me LONG for it to happen.

So every Saturday night, when I finish up with television, or video games, or a book, or anything else that keeps me up much longer than anyone else in the house (including the dog), I walk down the hall, past my ‘extra’ bedroom, and quietly lay down beside my daughter.

I watch her sleep for a few minutes, running my fingers through her hair and trying not to make a sound. I think about how her day was, and what her day will be like tomorrow. I wonder what she will want me to do, and what she will probably make me do. I hope I’m a good dad, and I hope she thinks I’m a good dad. And then, before I give in to how tired I (usually) am, I whisper this in her ear:

You will live a tremendous life. You are beautiful, and intelligent, and amazing, and I am and will always be so proud of the girl you are and the woman you’ll become. You make me laugh every day, and I’m grateful that you are my daughter, and I get to be your dad. I would do anything, ANYTHING for you. My heart, my joy, my darling. I love you more than you will ever, ever know.

Someday I’ll have to stop doing this. 

But not yet.