MWAH to all the floor kids!

They grow up so fast

How many of your kids did this?  For how long?  And were you genuinely bothered by it? 

I used to crawl into my parents’ room dragging my pillow and blanket to sleep on the area rug by their bed – olive green and thin as a dish towel.  Can’t tell you how long it went on, but no one made so much as a mention – and, trust me, my parents weren’t hippies or “Spock experimenters” or whatever fad was going then.  They were both teachers with jobs and they needed to get up in the morning and go to work.  If I was happy sleeping on the floor by them, well, we were all the better for it.  Plus, I got to watch, or at least listen to, the “adult” television on offer, although most of it was either over my head or completely unfunny (I suspect the latter; Smother’s Brothers, for God’s sake.).  And, I saw Hitchcock’s “The Birds” because my parents fell asleep but I didn’t.  In fact, I think that one movie defanged horror for me for all time, it was all so fake and ridiculous.  I was nine.  Boo yawn.

That’s when I went back to my bed.  Even Donovan on the radio with the creepiest song ever written (“Wear Your Love Like Heaven”) didn’t bother me anymore.

When our own kids camped out on our floor, it was familiar, comfortable ground.  They had their own lovely rooms, but they felt secure sleeping near us, under our protection.  We were equally comfortable (well, we had the box spring and mattress, and they had the floor, but that aside . . . )

Then they just didn’t need that security anymore (wiping away a little tear).  Not that sleeping on our floor was free from peril, but that’s a funny story involving the Emergency Room for another day!

Mwah to all the floor kids!