Baby Boy Has a Sleepover

My youngest child has always been the one who needs the most. The most time, the most attention, the most cuddles. Maybe it's just him, maybe its because he's the "baby" of the family, I'm not really sure.

His latest phase has been to have "sleepovers" with his siblings. Mostly his sister because she's closer to his age than his brother is. This entails some sort of sleeping apparatus being arranged. I have 3 options for this:

1. Give him a pile of blankets and let him sleep on the floor. This would be the easiest option, but I just can't do it. I feel like I'm some sort of child abusing, neglectful mom who makes her kid sleep on the hard ground and gives crusts of bread and glasses of water for sustenance. And then, if I did get over it and let him make a nest on the floor, I'd have guilt the whole night that he wasn't comfortable enough or that it's colder on the floor than on a bed, even if said bed was only 6 inches off the floor, heat rises so it would be warmer, don't you think? Needless to say, we usually don't go this route.

2. Put the air mattress in the room. We have done this quite a few times. It's a pain in the ass. Remember, there's not a lot of space in my house. So I have to move things around in the closet to finagle getting the air mattress out. Then I have to have my daughter clear a spot in her room to put the mattress. Her room isn't that big with all her crap in it, so trying to fit a queen size inflatable mattress is like trying to squeeze a poodle (the full size ones, not those puny runts) in a cat carrier. Once we get all of that done, Dad hauls out the air compressor (We used to have a hand air pump!?! This mattress prompted an upgrade.) and fills the mattress. Phew! Done! Until the next day when we have to let all the air out, flatten it as best as we can, and fold it as small as possible. Then I get to navigate the closet of horrors again and wedge it back into a space that's at least 1/2 as big as I need it to be for this thing.

3. Use baby boy's twin mattress. This is also a pain, although not as bad as option 2. We have to take all the blankets and pillows off the bed so that we can move the mattress  Then we haul it into the daughter's room and plunk it down on the carpet that is supposed to be vacuumed twice a week and probably hasn't been done in the last 2 months since I last nagged her (or broke down and vacuumed it myself) and has more dog hair than even the dog currently has. This of course means that the next day, when I put his bed back, I have to wash the sheets and blankets, thus creating more laundry than I need to have just because baby boy doesn't like to sleep alone. (He would have mad a fantastic twin brother.)

And you know he only asks for "sleepovers" at 8 at night when Daddy and I are relaxing after a full week of being responsible, bread winning parents. Which means we heave a sigh, haul our asses out of our respective chairs, and grab bedding. On the upside, these sleepovers don't come with strange children that I don't know. (They come with strange children I do know!)