I don’t know when I did it, but many months ago I urged our daughter to get into the habit of making her bed first thing in the morning. I didn’t think the idea would stick, nor did I expect the bed making to become a habit, but it did. And what I thought would be a healthy, tidy habit, has turned into a textbook case of obsessive compulsive disorder. There is a process to the making of the bed, and there is an equally intensive process to the turning down of the bed.
She has a select entourage of approximately 87 stuffed animals, each of which having their exact place on top of the bed while the bed is made, and when the bed is to be slept in. She has four pillows that also have their exact spot. When it’s time to go to bed, the decorative pillow is placed vertically at the right top of the mattress, slightly bent so half of the pillow is on the bed, the other half is propped up against the headboard. The pillow on which she lays her head is placed horizontally at the top left of the mattress. The cross-stitched pillow is placed against the wall, with the hearts facing toward the bed. Going down toward the foot of the bed, the bean bag pillows are also placed against the wall – pink pillow first (southern positioning), then the green one. And at the foot of the bed, and still against the wall is a tightly-rolled pink blanket. The crocheted blanket is carefully and geometrically folded down, as is the sheet. She has a purse-like duffle bag in which a segment of her stuffed animal entourage is carefully occupied. This bag is then placed in the center of the mattress, a foot away from the footboard. Riley (the real cat) sleeps at Maly’s feet, just before the bag of stuffed animals. Maly shares her pillow with a My Little Pony named Sweetie Belle, who also has her own little purple pillow and blanket.
My documented recollection doesn’t do this process anything near justice. What’s become a topic of debate and instilled a house-wide sense of urgency has been the making of the bed in the mornings, especially since school has started. It usually takes Maly 10 minutes to make her bed. Ten minutes is a lot of precious time in our house in the morning. The solution here would obviously be for everyone to wake up 10 minutes earlier. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Usually I’m the calm one with time on my side, however, this morning, I somehow subconsciously joined in verbalizing the sense of urgency in getting ready for school. Maly became distraught because she really needed help with making her bed. Elise graciously helped her this morning, and I think somewhere in this process, Elise had a talk with Maly about the time that bed maintenance has been taking.
Tonight Maly decided to rectify this problem. She insisted on sleeping on top of her bed. I just checked on her and she’s all curled up on the bottom half of her bed with her entourage and pillows at her head, and the cat snuggled up in his normal spot. It’s a tight squeeze, all in the name of a made bed.