Bed Buddies

My sister and I were lucky enough to have our own rooms growing up. Mine was decorated in blue and white Holly Hobbie wall paper and rose buds until I was 16 years old (awesome). My sister benefited from my mother's decorating foresight and enjoyed pink rosebuds and sage green stripes in her room, which are still there till this day. But even with separate rooms, we usually slept in the same bed. Not by force, but by choice.

I'm not sure how we made the decision of which room to sleep in. We didn't play rock, paper, scissors or anything. Maybe we realized that the mattress was getting a dip in it and it needed a rest, so we moved rooms. I don't know. But, we rotated on a somewhat quarterly basis, playing in one of our rooms during the day and then sleeping in the other at night. If for some reason we didn't sleep together (one of us was sick, we were arguing, we had been bad, etc.) and we had to sleep in separate beds, my mom claims that she could stand in between our two rooms and listen to the two of us carry on a conversation in our sleep - each of us sleeping in separate rooms, in separate beds. That's a trait we get from our dad's side of the family.

Now Seka has slept with mom and dad for the past 2.5 years. From the time she learned to jump on the bed (six months after she arrived), she has settled in every night in between us as snug as a bug in a rug (insert your choice of birth control joke here). The only time she's been forced to sleep in her crate was when I fell off of my horse last year and it was too painful for her to be in the bed with me. Yes, Cesar Milan would be horrified with the personification of my dog.

But something has suddenly changed in our home since Roxy has arrived. Now, we've not discouraged Roxy from getting on the furniture - bed included. But she hasn't tried and she isn't interested even though she sees Seka do it all day long. Roxy is happy on her bed(s) and snuggling by our feet. I'm sure this will eventually change, but I want her to do this in her own time. While during the day, Seka still prefers to nap on the sofa. At night, she has abandoned the prime sleeping position between mom and dad and taken to sleeping with her sister in the floor. No matter how eagerly I invite her to join us in her reserved spot on the bed, she prefers to sleep with Roxy, like a good big sister.

I've established a new "night night" routine for the girls and both have taken to it better than I'd ever imagined. It goes something like this:

• Night Night Potty: Roxy is always eager to run out in the backyard, so she's easy to motivate, no matter how deep in slumber she might be. Seka, on the other hand, doesn't even open her eyes one crack when I mention it is time to go out before we go to bed. Even when I go over and poke at her, roll her over from her famous roaching position, or play with her dried out tongue that has been hanging out of her face for two hours, I get zero reaction. Usually, once I come inside from my potty trip with Roxy, Seka decides she's ready to go outside.

• Night Night Race: The girls race up our short flight of stairs to our bedroom to see who will get to sleep on the awesome, gi-normous, orthopedic bed that dad bought them for Valentine's Day. They both can fit on it when they want to, but usually one has to settle for a plain old dog bed. You can see from this picture that when the bed is brought downstairs, Boo Radley claims a corner every time. She frequently claims Roxy as her new bed buddy.

• Night Night Cookie: Roxy sits and Seka lays down for their Night Night Cookies. Seka has always slept better with something on her stomach. Roxy has to get up two hours after she has something to eat or drink. So I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. I doubt one of them would fall for an imaginary cookie, so I get up at 3 a.m. or so for a "necessary" potty break. Every once in awhile everyone (including mom) sleeps through the night, but I've yet to figure out the combination of how that exactly happens. I hope she grows out of this.
  

• Night Night Kisses: Every snooty nose needs a night night kiss, right?
  

I'm proud of how Seka is becoming a good big sister. She still sneaks into bed with mom and dad every now and again after a 3 a.m. "emergency" turn out. Sometimes I think she wakes Roxy up on purpose to try and steal the better bed. Maybe that's just all a part of being sisters, but it just wasn't one I expected from my four-legged kind.