A New Bedroom

Welcome back to Taylor Talks!

Today, our storage pods were delivered! As excited as we were for all of our stuff to arrive, we didn't even unload the pod with the furniture in it. We completely unloaded the pod with all of our boxes though, and boy did that wipe us out!

My room is completely filled with boxes, to which my mom notes that I have much too much stuff. We couldn't even lay down our mattresses in there, so my sister and I are spending another night in the living room. At least we're on our own separate beds though, because every time one of us sat down on the air mattress, the other one would pop up from the impact!

My brothers had bunk beds in their bedroom in New York... While we only need one bed in my brother's room now, we still set up both bunks and left them on the floor as regular twin beds. My mom says that she wants it ready for when we have family or friends visit us, and my sister will still have the trundle under her bed that I used to sleep on (now I get my full size bed back) for the same reason. So my brother is sleeping in his own room for the first time tonight.

My little sisters are sleeping alone in their room for the first time tonight as well. The past few nights, my dad and brother were in there on an air mattress next to them. Tonight, even though my parents are still on an air mattress, they'll be sleeping in their own room, so the girls are by themselves. They were a little freaked out at first, because they've always shared a room with my sister and me, but we promised that we would check on them and make sure they were alright. When my mom went to look in on them, however, they were already out cold! I guess they were just happy to have their beds back and fell right asleep.

All the focus on sleeping and beds tonight had me thinking about sleeping situations in the past. I thought back to having new foster children in the house, and how they would need to get used to a new bed and a new bedroom. I don't really remember ever seeing someone visibly upset about sleeping in our house for the first time, but as a kid, I probably didn't take any notice of that kind of thing. I do remember specific situations regarding sleeping and foster siblings that left an impact on me though, and sometimes I think back and reminisce about having those kids in our house.

I remember when I was in second grade, I had a foster sister living with us who was in first grade. We slept on bunk beds, actually the same beds that later got passed down to my brothers, and I was on the top bunk while my sister slept on the bottom bunk. This particular foster sister had a rough life; she came to us kind of violent and would lash out sometimes. But when we went to sleep at night, she would be so calm and we would bond. After my parents said goodnight to us and left us alone in the bedroom, we would talk quietly and share stories. I felt like we really connected during that time when we were all alone. Then, just before we were going to stop talking and go to sleep, I would reach my hand down through the railing, and she would reach her hand up, and we would grab on to each other and say goodnight. I don't remember how this little ritual started, or who came up with it, or why, but I remember so distinctly that we went through this every night. After she left, it felt so weird to just lay down and go to sleep without talking to anyone.

Another instance I remember was actually a one-time occasion that was burned into my memory (and my brother's memory) after we babysat one night. My parents had gone out to dinner with friends, and my brother and I were old enough to be left in charge. We had it pretty easy; my parents put the kids to bed before they left and we just had to sit up and watch tv all night. Well, it ended up being a much scarier night than we had anticipated! We heard a noise from the bedroom, so we got up to investigate. Our foster brother was maybe two or three at the time, and he had been in bed for quite a while already. Apparently, he hadn't been tired, and he had wandered out of bed and was playing with a toy. We just told him that it was bedtime and put him back in bed. No big deal, right? What's scary about that? Well a while later, my brother got up to go to the bathroom, and when he walked down the hallway, I heard him shriek like a little girl! I went running to find out what had happened, and there, in the middle of the hallway, was our little brother, just staring at us. He had gotten out of bed so quietly and opened the bedroom door without a sound, so my brother had no idea that he was there when he walked down the hall. It freaked us both out so much that we wouldn't agree to babysit at night any,ore for quite a while.

The last memory I'll share is of the twins when they were about one or two. They slept in these cribs that were technically portable cribs, so they were on wheels. Well my sisters were pretty clever from a very young age. They used to help each other get into all sorts of mischief, like helping each other get pajamas off at night (even when my mom put them on backwards to prevent them from taking off their own pjs). So we would separate their cribs in order to prevent this stuff from happening. If they couldn't reach each other, they couldn't get into trouble, right? Wrong. These girls were so smart that they would reach across the gap to hold hands and pull the cribs back together! We would go in to check on them and the cribs would be side by side once more and pajamas would be off again. It was really annoying, but hysterically funny.

Do you have any funny, heartwarming, or crazy stories about bedtime? Maybe you remember something special with a sibling, or your children have done something cute.... I'd love to hear about it in the comments below!

I only have nine days to reach my goal of 150 likes on my Facebook author page by the time I'm celebrating a year of blogging on July 29th. I still need 41 people to hit that "like" button and I would be really grateful to everyone if you could like and share my page. It's as simple as clicking the two buttons at the top right of any blog page, so it only takes a few seconds of your time! As I've mentioned before, when I reach 150 likes, I will share information about the novel that I've been working on, so I'm really excited to hit that milestone!

I’d greatly appreciate it if you would share this blog with friends and family through your favorite social media sites. If you’re sharing on Twitter, don’t forget to tag me (@TayTayK02) and use the hashtag #TaylorTalks.

Thanks!
Taylor

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