It Happened One Night

Last night, I didn't get to sleep at all. . . well, I got to sleep for about 45 minutes. See, I was at my parents' house. And somehow, the house has gotten smaller over the years. You would think there'd be a way to easily shelter two middle-aged folks, two little people (my nieces, who were also staying over), and a big sloppy curly-headed insomniac. Not so much.

I returned home from attending a football game (the reason for crashing at Mom and Dad's in the first place) to find the foldout couch unfolded and made up for the night. That was cute. My parents were thoughtful enough to
A) give the sleeping rights to my old bedroom to a four-year-old and a two-year-old
B) put up a safety gate on the second floor to prevent a 2-year-old from getting downstairs and, presumably, to keep me from trying to boot the four-year-old from my bed, and
C) turn my sister's bedroom into an upstairs den, complete with really comfortable recliners (for sitting, not sleeping), DVD player, and Wii (which I couldn't play with because everyone was sleeping), and perhaps best of all,
D) unfold a couch that hasn't been unfolded in, oh, 8 years, with a mattress that has conformed to the metal frame of the bed, so that if I were to actually try to sleep in said bed, I'd be shaped like the bell curve (not to mention the fact that most of the people who used the bed--grandparents--have passed, and it's sort of the Bed of Death to me).

I finally resolved to pass out in the family room, but at about 2:00 a.m., I heard noises from upstairs. The Panda Bear (4-year-old) was going to sleep with Grandma and Grandpa, and my old bed was mine, leading me to 4 other realizations:
A) It is hard to sleep when there is a cute 2-year-old in the bed next to you, and you just want to stare at her and realize how freaking adorable she is when she's not awake and cranky.
B) That 2-year-old breathes REALLY loud, so even if I was tired, I wouldn't have fallen asleep,
C) Now that the wallpaper has been replaced with purple paint, I can no longer occupy my time awake outlining the shapes on the wallpaper pattern with my finger. I think I'm going to ask my mother if she kept any samples of that wallpaper. Sometimes, even though I wasn't a very happy kid, I just want to grab onto anything that reminds me of what it feels like to be 10--totally taken care of, with pastel explosions on my wall.
D) My mother was right all along: more than a decade ago, when I picked out this ultra-firm mattress, I didn't know what I was thinking. How Panda Bear EVER sleeps in that bed is beyond my understanding.

After about half an hour, I resigned myself to not falling asleep at all and headed downstairs to look nostalgically at old photos scattered around the house (damn, I was a cute todddler/awkward teenager/prom diva), bs on Yahoo! Answers, and work my way through my parents' TIVO titles--which, thanks to their role as grandparents, was, like, 99% Dora the Explorer and 1% High School Musical 2.

Anyway, it all worked out okay, because once we were all up, I got some real quality time with both girls. Panda wanted to make orange juice, and I told her how orange juice is REALLY made. A farmer goes out to an orange tree with an orange juice container and a screwdriver. And he screws open the tree, and out pours the juice. (My father had gone out to get milk. When he came back, I told the Panda that he had taken the old milk container out to a farm, where he milked a cow named Bessie directly into the container.) Then I realized I have to be careful what I tell these kids, because even though it's funny, there's stuff I want to teach them for real, and I don't want them to think I'm always kidding.

But really, it would be awesome if orange tree trunks were filled with orange juice.