I have a back-up plan should the job market worsen: selling used furniture. I already have an impressive inventory of unnecessary beds.

And should things really get bad  – say, Bank of America flounders after buying a Chinese bank, a busted brokerage and a flailing mortgage firm, taking my money with it – we can easily make do with one bedroom, a kitchen and living room/toy box.

Even though we have 1,400 square feet, three bedrooms and six beds, everyone winds up smooshed in one bed in one room every night: Mine. Good thing I relented when Dad wanted to buy a California king a few years back. Turns out we needed the space after all.

The festivities begin with the guys in Boots’ room, which is way cooler than Big Guys’ because Mom’s always loved that baby more. Except they start off on the floor instead of the bed because Big Guy won’t concede the twin bed’s too small for two sideways sleepers and return to his own room.

He’s taken to dozing off immediately, though, in stark contrast to the kid who used to instigate the nightly riots and yakathons. Boots has taken over as rabble rouser.

Boots, my former beautiful sleeper who could konk out any time, any place without a second’s trouble. How could he do this to me – and, yes, when you’re facing a mountain of dishes and an inbox stacked even higher, you take it personally.

It’s a half hour of  Boots in the Box every night now.

He pops up and asks for water, I take in a drink and close the lid. He pops up again, wanting the blanket he kicked off the last time he popped up. I cover him and close the lid. He pops up again, wanting a hug, and that’s where I start to steam. “Last hug,” I growl, closing the lid again.

I feel awful about that. “What kind of momma growls at a baby who wants a hug?” Well, the kind with a pile of laundry and an even bigger backlog of unanswered emails.

Just when I’m ready to send him to the garage, he nods off.

He’d have plenty of options in the garage. There’s the baby bed, a day bed that moved out when Boots moved in and a 42-year-old Ethan Allen I can’t part with because it was my first bed.

Yet, the only bed either guy is interested in is mine.

It’s a game Boots has played for a year, slipping out of his room in the dead of night when everyone else is in dreamland because he knows the sound-sleeping Big People will never wake up and send him back.

Big Guy  caught on, and now it’s a competition. They’re setting mental alarm clocks for increasingly earlier hours to try to get there first and claim the most-coveted spot. Seems they want to have their space, but they don’t want me to have mine.

Monday, Big Guy bounced on me not long after I’d passed out. Dang, his elbows are sharp.

Tuesday, it was Boots. He showed up soon after I’d turned off the light. I blew any remaining “go to your room” credibility by not sending him back immediately, but I was too tired.

Last night, Big Guy won and Boots decided to protest. Loudly. At 4 a.m. “That’s my place!” he pointed and wailed.

Arrrggggggggghhhhh. He really does want to sleep in the garage.

I know I should end it lest this go on until they’re 30.

Which it might. Big Guy told me about a  year ago that when he “got a wife,” she could sleep in the twin bed with him and Boots. She won’t mind as long as she gets to have makamoki and cheese for dinner, he assured me.

Make more room in the California king, Dad. We’re going to be sleeping five one of these days.

Copyright 2009 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

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