The Little Things: Do You Make Your Bed?

 JENN McKINLAY: A few years ago, Hooligan 1's band director tasked the entire marching band with a daily chore. Before arriving for zero hour, which was marching band practice, they were to make their bed. 

He got the idea from Navy Seal Admiral McRaven in a commencement address he gave at the University of Texas in Austin. Here's the clip:

Shockingly, the child who usually left half of his bedding on the floor was suddenly not leaving his room until the bed was tight enough to bounce a quarter on. Huh. The theory is that if you make your bed every morning, you will have managed to accomplish your first goal of the day which will carry forward through the rest of the day's tasks. 

 Of course, at our next band parent meeting, there was a mom who stood up and said that making the bed wasn't healthy and her child would not be doing it. She felt that the bedding needed to be aired out and therefore making the bed was a bad thing. Yes, this was the hill she was prepared to die on. (Picture me in the meeting eyerolling and sighing). Although, in all fairness, there is support for not making your bed because of dust mites and dead skin (ew, I know, sorry): Why You Shouldn't Make Your Bed Right Away but they to wait until after breakfast not as this mom insisted that you should never make your bed. I have to say, I never saw this bed making controversy coming!

Now confession time: I love a neatly made bed. There is nothing better than pulling back the sheets and sliding in, however, I am not a very good bed maker. In fact, I intentionally rise early so that Hub is the last one out of the bed and therefore responsible for setting it to rights. On the rare occassion that he's up first, I stall and ignore the jumbled mess, hoping he'll give in and make it when he wanders by. Sometimes he outlasts me and I give in and make the stupid bed, but then I am even more determined to get up first. He has no idea about any of this, so shhhh. 

 So, how about it, Reds? Are you a bed maker? Do you believe that it sets the tone for your day? Or are you more of a free range bedding sort of person and the floor is fine?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Ooh, I hate an unmade bed. But since I am almost always the first one up, Rick gets that job. He does it passably, although not as well as I would do it, so that I usually do some extra straightening before I get into it at night. On his plus side, he's much better at folding sheets than I am.

Don't you wonder how the kid whose mom said he didn't have to make the bed turned out? And did the bed making expertise stick with the Hooligans? 

JENN: It did with one, Debs, but not the other. I opt to not go into his room anymore -- I just close the door.

LUCY BURDETTE: I don’t like an unmade bed, but if I don’t do it, no one does. (John has many fine qualities but bed-making not one. I just asked him his theory--he said he enjoys getting into a crisply made bed, if someone else made it.) To be fair, I often spend several hours working in bed, so it’s my domain during the day.

The animals in our house do love “helping” make a bed though--especially T-bone, who burrows into the sheets and purrs and purrs.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: When I was little, we had to make our beds or else. We were never sure what “or else”  meant, and no one wanted to find out.

Now, oh, I love getting into a nicely made bed--remember how lovely hotel beds can be?--and I am a happy bed-making helper, but whoa. When I do it on my own, it never looks right. It’s never puffy enough where it’s supposed to be puffy, or flat enough where it’s supposed to be flat.

Jonathan, now, is the KING of bed-making. I am truly not sure how he does it, but it is genius. ALL perfect corners and tight sheets, and it’s quite the talent. We do it together in the morning. I’m not sure we have ever not done it. I can’t imagine just leaving it. It would be too depressing.

(Jenn, tell the hooligans that future girlfriends will be very impressed.) 

RHYS BOWEN:  I say thank God for duvets!  Bed making these days is so easy. Those really deep fitted bottom sheets stay in place. I just shake out the duvet and voila. Bed is made. In Germany when I was a student women hung their bedding out of the window. I imagine it smelled fresh but I’ve never been tempted to do it. Besides I have screens on my windows. 

Like Hank I do love hotel bedding, so cool and smooth. And my own luxury is a silk pillow case, supposedly good for face and hair.

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I always make my bed in the morning, with the rare exception that everyone with a cat will recognize - if she settles on the tossed-aside duvet while I'm in the bathroom and falls asleep, by law I'm required to wait to make the bed until after she's gotten up. As for the Karen who didn't want her precious making his or her bed, fuggedaboutit. Let's face it, as disgusting as it sounds, we've all been sleeping around dead skin for as long as there has been bedding, and dustmites (scary!) are doing us a favor by getting rid of it so we don't vanish in a pile of epidermal rejects.

 

The Boy was the absolute worst about making his bed (or keeping his room in any better style than the town dump) so Ross and I wondered what would happen when he joined the Navy. Lo and behold, he came back as The Sailor, and now on visits he helps me make my bed with nice square corners and a tight tuck! Thanks, Adm. McRaven! 

HALLIE EPHRON: Our beds are slept in, thrown together, repeat; and I envy anyone who can make well a bed. 

As for me, I blame it on my parents that I can’t and don’t. And my kids blame it on me that they can’t and don’t, either. I also cannot properly fold sheets to save my life. 

I can, however, make pie crust. And gravy. And write. I can do that, too.

JENN: Always play to your strengths, Hallie, which are many!

Okay, Readers, chime in! Are you a bedmaker or no?

Gone to the Dogs by Jenn McKinlay

JENN McKINLAY: “Five puppies in the bed, and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.” So they all rolled over and one fell out.” This is a counting rhyme I used to sing when I was a children’s librarian. Now…it’s my life. Why?

Well, way back when when Hub and I got married, I came with Chubs, a cat. Chubs had more staying power than any of my prior boyfriends, so he was allowed to sleep wherever he wanted. Because loyalty matters. Naturally, Chubs chose the bed, and Hub learned to live with it. 

https://www.facebook.com/OffTheLeashDailyDogCartoons/ 

Then we got a dog, Lucy. She was a great dog, a standard poodle, but not a snuggler. She had boundary issues as princesses do. Lucy patrolled the house at night and once assured we were all safe and sound she went to her own room, the office, where she happily slept on the couch, with her legs in the air and her head on a pillow – no, not kidding. 

Sadly, in the following years, both animals passed away. We got two more cats, Patsy and Loretta, who each chose a hooligan to sleep with, and Hub and I had our double bed all to ourselves. Yes, I said double as in a full size, basically a twin on steroids. We were still newlyweds, so we didn’t mind the close quarters. Then we got another dog, a schnauzer, named Otto. 

Otto was roughly the size of a guinea pig when we he came to us. Tiny, pitiful, my little bundle of eyebrows and mustache, I couldn’t bear to stuff him in a crate to sleep. He slept on my chest for months so that my heartbeat could soothe him. Yeah, he was so soothed, he became the most pathetic mama’s boy known to canine kind. I couldn’t (still can’t) take a step without him. Then we found Annie, our pittie mix, thrown out in an alley. She quickly became Daddy’s girl and worked her way up into the bed by batting her big, brown eyes at the Hub, also known as the marshmallow. Plus, she and Otto are besties so where one goes, the other follows. 

https://www.facebook.com/OffTheLeashDailyDogCartoons/

So now, Hub and I were in a bed built for two with what was essentially another small adult in the bed. Oy vey. Did we kick them out? No. Did we train the dogs to sleep elsewhere? No. We bought a bigger bed, because, of course, we did. Let me just say, king sized is just right. I love this bed so much, I dream about it when I’m traveling and am forced to sleep in lesser beds. 

But then, we found a tiny kitten. King George. At first, he slept on a heating pad in a box (he was that itty bitty), then in a fleecy blanket in his little crate. Once he had some self determination, he moved to the master bathroom sink. Next it was a perch on his cat tree. All perfectly acceptable. But recently, the weather got cold, and I woke up to a pair of feet in my face because Little G had migrated to the bed, too. 

Little G sleeping with the big dogs.

Did I boot him out? Nope. Did I try and roll him over? Nuh uh. Instead, I contorted myself into some weird shape that resembled a fusilli pasta noodle because heaven forbid baby gets deprived of a minute of his twenty hours of cat naps. 

Yes, I know. My life has gone to the dogs..and cat.

So, how about you, Reds and Readers, are you the victim of pets in the bed? Or are you made of sterner stuff?