Photo by: Fabrisalvetti

The Instructions for the Morning

Photo by: Fabrisalvetti

Stretch out in your bed, the one with the Ikea duvet and expansive depression right in the middle, beside the husband of your youth. Remain at the thin place between sleeping and wakefulness, watching the dawn come in. By now, you’ve somehow managed to be grateful that you’re sleeping while you are still sleeping (and you’ve learned to count dozing). Move into the duvet and turn over right at the same moment that you hear your youngest start to stir. Listen to him laughing to himself in his crib, babbling and hollering.

Keep your eyes shut and pray that he’ll go back to sleep. Consider the fact that those who claim to have children that sleep past 6:00 AM are clearly liars.

Feel the breeze from your always-open window. Listen to the sound of the creek just outside and congratulate yourself yet again for it, like somehow you had something to do with the smell of trees and sound of birds and running water, just outside your window.

Drag yourself from your warm bed and stumble, straw-haired and mascara-bleary, to the boy’s room. Try to be quiet-quiet-quiet so that your daughter will magically keep sleeping through the boy’s laughter but look, there’s the door opening and a blonde pixie is blinking out at you, wondering if she can get up too? Change the baby’s nappy and carry them both back to your bedroom.

Toss them into the bed. Be careful to aim for your husband so that he has to wake up too.

Crawl back into the bed and pull the covers over everyone. Laugh when your daughter scoots over to your side of the bed with the report that Daddy is stinky and she doesn’t want to smell him. Let your boy lay down right on top of you, his wide mouth buried right into the nape of your neck, kissing and giggling and burrowing.

Curve your left arm around your daughter so that you can stroke her baby-fine hair while holding her tight and use your right arm to trace circles on your son’s back lightly with your fingernails.

Smell their heads and swear to yourself that you will never forget how they smell when they are sweaty and sleepy and yours.

Lock eyes with your husband across the expanse of babies in the middle of the bed. Chuckle at how you’ve both changed since you were a couple of skinny punks planning to change the world. Hear him say good morning, beautiful.

Wonder if your daughter has taken a breath since she woke up and if she will ever run out of things to say, plans to make. Adjust the koala bear masquerading as your son because he keeps crawling up closer and closer, trying to wrap himself around you. Roll him off and onto his sister whose skinny arms are outstretched, asking for her turn to snuggle him.

Let them hold each other for a while. Feel your heart skip a beat when he chirps her name a few times, in that high octave only reserved for her, and she laughs, calling him “such a clever boy” like she has suddenly grown up.

Cling to the side of the bed while your husband clings to the other side, curved like a parenthesis to hold them between. Navigate the transition from sleepy snuggles to puppy-dog wrestling matches before they all fall out of the bed to start the day again.

Later in the afternoon, when nap time rolls around, your daughter will ask to sleep on your side of the bed. She’ll tell you that it’s because it’s her favourite place in the world, because it’s where she snuggles with you. She’ll call it The Family Bed.

(tone inspired by How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto.)

Sarah Bessey is a wife, mother, happy-clappy Jesus lover, writer and social justice wanna-be. She lives in Abbotsford, B.C. next to a blueberry farm.

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33 Comments

Absolutely beautiful...puts into words what it is like to get started on a Saturday with little ones.

I too smell my little Ever's sweaty sleepy head-I'm fairly certain that if it could be mass produced much of the world's hostility could be done away with.

Every morning my son wakes up around 6-7 and stands up in crib and cry/whines. I pick him up and promptly plop back in bed. He kicks and squirms a little, then gets a morning breath kiss and hug from daddy and we all drift back to sleep together. It may only be 30 minutes and I may have to do it everyday forever. Thankfully!!

Thank you for this! Great reminder of what matters most.

That is beautiful! It brought tears to my eyes. :)

Beautiful!

Lovely.

Thank you for this sweet piece of writing.

Loved this!!! Beautiful.

I feel like she was spying on me this morning...especially the part when she put her children in the bed near dad to wake him up too. :)

After reading this, no one can tell me that letting your baby "cry it out" is better than "the family bed".

If anyone out there is wondering if they should co-sleep with their babies, I HIGHLY recommend it. I know it is not for everyone, but I wouldn't change my mornings with my daughters and my husband for the world!!!!!

Wow, thanks for sharing the raw beauty of motherhood and a slice of your life. Your writing is fantastic and inspirational! It makes me proud to be a mum and that I can claim those simply sweet moments too.

Wow! This takes me back. My youngest is now 6 and my middle child, now 9, LOVED to snuggle. Though contorted, it was the best time of the day. They still like to sneak in our bed in the wee hours of the morning, but now, I have to take the first one in back to bed and let the second one have a little "our bed" time before I have to get up for work. Love it.

Thanks for bringing me back.

so beautiful and brings back very similar memories..

Thanks for that. : )

LOVE this! So true. Well put. Thanks!

As I sit here on this beautiful morning drinking my coffee and reading these oh so precious words I feel the tears run down my cheeks. It seems like just yesterday that was me laying in that bed tracing circles on my sons back with my fingernails while we all snuggled in the family bed. What "sweet" memories that I thank God for. Ladies cherish every moment and breath in every detail as Sarah does. It goes by so quickly...

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