The Empty Bed

Abbie has a long list of objects with her when she sleeps. She needs her stuffed cat, stuffed dog, several burp clothes, a bath towel or two, and her lambie blanket. Finally, if there’s room, we add a sheet, quilt, and pillow. Occasionally, Abbie fits in as well.

I’ve memorized this menagerie because I have to restock it often. Her bed is always empty come bedtime. I’m not just referring to her absence come bedtime after chasing kitties instead of climbing into bed to relax.

Abbie loves her bedmates so much that she insists on dragging them with her throughout the house. Occasionally this is comes as part of her game to fetch items she recognizes in books and on television. When we read about a cat, she fetches her cat. If she sees a pillow, she grabs her pillow. When a cow appears, she raids a cow blanket from a brother’s crib.

Sometimes she carries a stuffed animal when interacting with an actual animal. If she wants to pet an uncooperative cat, she might bring her stuffed cat to the frightened cat. Maybe she hopes the real cat will see her lugging the stuffed version around by the ankle, and will realize that she means no harm. Or, maybe she hopes the stuffed one will talk the real one into holding still for a minute. This happens more often after a real one hurts her, such as when the dog knocks her over trying to escape her fur-pulling fingers. Abbie will run to her room, bring back the stuffed dog, and throw it at her in tears. Surprisingly, this does not seem to impress the dog.

Most of all, Abbie just seems to enjoy carrying her bedding around the house. When waking in the morning, she might dump her blanket outside her door, as if showing that she never wants to sleep again. Or she might drag her pillow and blanket onto the couch, and set up a makeshift bed on the sofa. No one except the most desperate of houseguests sleeps on the sofa, so I can’t figure out where she got the idea for this one. Once a day, though, she trots out her bedding, drops it on the couch, and crawls under it. Not that she’s trying to sleep. I’d let her nap on the couch if I thought she’d do it without running around the room for a half-hour like she usually does. She’s just pretend sleeping. She pops right back out from under the covers, maybe plays a quick game of peek-a-boo, and leaves everything on the couch for me to drag back into her room before bedtime. At least I know where to look first when I can’t find a burp cloth at bedtime.

The boys are pulling things off her bed too. The lambie blanket is a favorite target, probably because it’s almost identical to their cow blankets. They’ll also run around the house with burp clothes, or knock things off the bed as they shimmy their way on top of the mattress. I know the boys are learning to do things earlier than Abbie did by copying her, but I wish they’d wait until Abbie is old enough to help me find lost bedding. Thankfully, they don’t seem to need anything more than their cow blankets to fall asleep, though that may be because they’re not old enough to drag things into bed yet.