Death to the Starfish!

See, my problem is that I've always been a starfish when it comes to sleeping arrangements. Paul knows this and, as he snores like a wounded, asthmatic water buffalo, he puts up with it because quite frankly, being a bed hog isn't nearly as bad as being a snorer. So, over the past 12 years we've become accustomed to me star-fishing on 3/4 of the bed and him still having a nice quarter all to himself. It worked for us.

And then we had kids.

As any multiples parent knows, pregnancy with more than one is a special beast, and I soon outgrew our bed. There was no longer room for my husband, the cat or the dog and only one spot ideally positioned to starfish directly in front of the air conditioner clutching a bottle of tums in one hand and a bucket in the other while I slept for hours on end. So what did my brilliant husband do? He brought in a second queen sized bed, pushed it up against our usual queen sized bed and thus created "Super Bed". This was fantastic, we each had our own bed yet could still roll over and touch each other if we had wanted to. (We didn't want to. He may have, but I would have killed him) We got used to this, and life was good.

Then the kids came out, I lost half my body mass in the delivery room and we downsized to one bed, like normal people, and although the kids fit in the bed alright:

They turned out to be starfish, like their mother:

Battles were won and lost, compromises made, treaties were signed, tears flowed and I learned to cling to the side of the bed like a good, unselfish partner and parent should. I've fallen out a few times (Paul laughed) and he's fallen out a few times (I may have nudged him) but we both grew accustomed to our new sleeping arrangements with the cat, dog and occasional baby or two in the middle.

However, things have become much more complicated now that the girls are walking and can escape freely from their room to waddle up to my side of the bed (why is it always my side?!?) with their seahorse and an empty bottle to come for a cuddle, a bit of reassurance and to basically get all up in my grill and prevent me from sleeping for the remainder of the night. Paul seems perfectly able to sleep soundly through this, though he claims that he has no space on the bed. I beg to differ:

This is a shot I took in indignation at 4am last week of Paul, Lochie and Dermot all hogging up our Super Kingsized Bed when I was pretty much forced out of bed against my will. Look at him, all comfortable and asleep with all that room and all those covers. Comfy bastard tries to tell me he gets no room at night. Just look at that!

But then he presents me with this gem that he took at about 4am last night:

and I have been forced to concede.

Touche, Husband, Touche.