Co-sleeping....in shifts

I came home from work this morning to find this guy (the one without feathers) all rolled up and warm under the quilts in my bed. He says he likes the way it "smells like you, Mama".
And you ask me why Im so grateful?

And so, not wanting to disturb him (he prefers sleeping sideways, smack-dab in the center of the bed, and has done so since he was nine months old...incidentally, when we stopped co-sleeping on a regular basis) I chose to stay in my dirty dirty ceil blue scrubs and lay down on the sofa to catch a few moments of peace before he awakens, we eat something for breakfast, his grandfather swoops in to take over and I go upstairs to a warm, darling boy-scented bed and fall fast asleep.

Except there is a woodpecker delivering what is apparently a most urgent message via morse code, conveniently, against the exterior of my house. An annoyance, absolutely, but once I remember what it was like when I lived in a basement apartment and it was people delivering loud, often obscene and far less melodic messages on the stoop just outside, above and to the left of my bedroom window that kept me awake late into the night, I decide it isn's *so* terrible a sound.

I can get just as much rest by focusing on my breathing and engaging in quiet meditation and prayer as I can from actual sleep.

At least, that's what Im going to tell myself until Im upstairs.

Last night my dhtb rang me at work and asked if I had time to listen as he read our daily devotional (we hadnt a chance to read it in the morning as I was off to get my ds from his second-ever sleepover and back to Pittsburgh in time for karate class). It was such a small gesture, but so great with meaning.

The devotional is a new thing for us. With everything that is going on, all the changes in our lives (eu-stress is still STRESS, after all), it was my suggestion that we actually put into practice what we have said all along about wanting our spiritual life together to be held as a priority. We both had envisioned, I think, something much more....eastern. Something involving zafus. At least one zafu, anyway.

But my ds's own spiritual path, as it crystalizes and takes shape in front of our eyes, has brought me back Home Again to the realization that I can live my truth wherever I find myself. And so we return to what we know. And what a deep, rich homecoming it has been.