Over the last month or so, Stella has realized the cozy lusciousness of snuggling in bed. I think we have managed to learn her up on the difference between middle of the night and morning-time, and which is the appropriate time in which to climb into our bed. (Although she will still give an occasional try to a 2:00am snuggle session). On weekdays, after Steve has gotten up and started his morning rituals like touching all the doorknobs and running regression analysis on the weekly weather forecast, she’ll patter across the hall to come lay in bed with me. It may sound simple and sweet, but there are certain ground rules that Stella never was given access to, and I am now the one paying the price.

Firstly, there is the morning pee ritual. Although she has been absolutely awesome when it comes to potty training, when it comes to that first morning pee, she will fight you to the death. You KNOW she has to go, but when you ask her she adamantly denies it, and when you try to subtly guide her towards the bathroom, she promptly begins the meltdown sequence. The part that is most baffling is that when you finally do wrangle her onto the toilet and make her sit there long enough, she will eventually go and you can literally watch the venom drain from her system. She relaxes. She smiles. The flames shooting from her nostrils are snuffed out with flowery goodness and light.

A screaming 2-year-old at 5:30 in the a.m. just doesn’t really set the tone for a cozy morning ritual. Unless there is some clear and present reason for it, I really don’t find it part of my life-plan to be up before 6:00am – something I am finding harder and harder to enforce. So, on those rare mornings where she will agreeably pee without invoking a screaming tornado first, she’ll make it into bed with me only to begin fidgeting and talking and trying to scoot so close as to be able to crawl underneath my skin. The difficulty I find in this situation is that even though she is wiggling, kicking me, pulling my hair and yelling in my ear, each and every one of those things she is doing with the sweetest and most loving intentions. In Stella’s world, she is playing with my hair (which, for any of you who know her, know that this is A-1 in comfort and happiness), scooting close enough to be nose to nose and telling me,“You da bet mommy ebuh.”

I have pretty much started to resign myself to the fact that once she climbs into bed with me, I won’t be sleeping. And, really, there are far worse things in life than having to wake up a half hour early to lay nose to nose with a cute and snuggly toddler. I do, however, have my work cutout for me in fine-tuning the process. Feel free to post these rules in your own home to deal with spouses, pets or other household members who don’t quite know the rules.

• Snuggle Rule #1: Pee first – and no crying about it.
• Snuggle Rule #2: Whispering only.
• Snuggle Rule #3: No kicking or fidgeting.
• Snuggle Rule #4: No hair pulling.
• Snuggle Rule #5: Kisses mandatory.