The Best Night EVER

From the title of this blog, you might think I'm referring to some fancy date that James and I went on, or maybe Louis slept through the night for the first time. But no, the best night EVER is thanks to our new mattress that arrived on Saturday. Granted, its only a COSTCO sale matress, not some fancy posturpedic or sleep number bed, but compared to what we had before, it is heaven.

James and I have never slept in a very good bed. When we first got married, we knew we were going to move to Boston in seven months. It didn't make much sense to buy a brand new bed just to haul it across country. We borrowed a bed from a friend of mine. The bed had been her grandmother's bed- for many years. That probably tells you enough about that bed. It compressed to about an inch when we were both laying on it.

At the time, I didn't notice it that much. We were newlyweds and the bad bed was the least of our 'sleeping in the same bed' concerns. James is a terrible twitcher when he falls asleep. I'd be just about to nod off into peaceful dreams and when his whole body would twitch violently and the whole bed would shake. I'd think it was an earthquake and jump up, ready to stand in the door frame or bolt under the kitchen table. His even gave me a bloddy nose once, when his arm twitched so violently it smacked me clean across the face. Also, James had the habit of trying to position himself smack in the center of the bed, with arms and legs stretched and splayed to the four corners, not unlike a starfish. This of course left very little room for me and I would generally wake curled into a ball in his armpit or some other less than optimal space.

To be fair, I'm sure James had plenty of adjustments sleeping with me. I used to love the room insanely hot when I slept and was definately a pillow and blanket hog. With all these barriers to a good night's sleep, a waffer like mattress was not our biggest concern.

When we moved to Boston, we came out for my graduate school with no job, little furniture and no bed. After a month of sleeping on our air mattresses (one of which would deflate every night by morning time), we decided to break down and buy a bed. Problem was, we had a really tight cash flow, so we headed to the every trusty Craigslist. There we found a decent bed for a steal, about $150. It was an OK bed. Definately an improvement over the last one. Plus, we had worked out most of the 'sleeping' issues and had been coming from air mattresses, so it felt like a fluffy cloud to us.

Fast forward three and a half years to the present. Our Craigslist bed slowly and steadily gave out on us. Its once straight top now resembled our shallow soup bowls. James even gave up sleeping with a pillow because he just rested his head on the high edge of the bed while his body rested in the lower bowl portion. We rolled together frequently. If we brought Louis to bed with us, he would also roll gently down to the middle of the bed, long before he had the physical capacity to roll over.

So yesterday we finally broke down and bought a new bed, a real bed. It is high and firm and so not bowl like that we both commented we were afraid of rolling off of the bed without the raised edge of our old bed. And not surprisingly, last night's sleep was AWESOME.

Even Louis finds it comfortable for his afternoon naps.