By that time, eldest Dotson child had moved on and now slept in a wood framed bunk bed hand crafted by our father. In a family of five, he was only to sleep solo. This left me as senior child in family bed, a title that lent me a certain amount of privilege, and these are days I remember most when I think back to last time I slept in same bed with someone under age of two.

I remember stories of my infancy, more from telling and re-telling, I am sure, than from genuine memory; countless friends and family have heard of night, sleep deprived and exhausted, that my mother lay me down to sleep next to my father. I slept huddled in his arms on side of bed, my mother an ocean away on her end of king size waterbed. Lured by scent of her leaking breasts and some clearly primal instinct, I managed, at just a few months of age, to roll over my father and across broad expanse until my lips at last found relief of my mother’s waiting nipple. This could have been my first successful experience at rolling over. Suffice to say, mom did not sleep as anticipated, but who could deny such determination?