Reason No. 1 for not having children:

I am not a fan of 'o-dark-thirty. This morning my darling little dog started whining at 4:45. I tried to ignore her, hoping it was momentary and she'd go back to sleep. She didn't. So I dragged myself out of bed, threw on a robe and walked her downstairs to potty. We came back and she had the crazy notion that she should get to get in bed with me. No dice. I put her back in her kennel and returned to bed (though not to slumber since I had this post whirling through my head). My general rule is if she gets up before 6:00, she goes back to the kennel until I'm ready to get up. If it's after 6:00 I may stay up, I may not, and if not, she gets to go to bed with me. I know, she's a dog, but she's a smart dog, and I'm really not ready for her to learn the lesson that as soon as she wakes up in the night and whines, then she gets to go to bed with me.

It reminds me of my nephew, actually. When I went to visit he wanted me to sleep in his bed and he'd sleep in the crib where his sister normally sleeps and she'd go back to the baby bed. He wanted to the crib 'cause it was "cooler", and his bed was "kinda boring."
Me: "So you want me to have the boring bed?"
N: "Yeah."
Me: "Well, I think I might sleep in the pullout couch, and then, when you get up in the morning, you could come get in bed with me."
N: "Ummm, yeah, I think you should sleep in the pull-up couch."
Me: "okay."
N: "Aunt Debbie, well, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night 'cause I'm thirsty, and so, I might get in bed with you before morning."
Me: (remembering how even nap time with my nephew in the past has meant little feet in my sides and in my head) "I think you need to stay in your bed until morning. You can only get in bed with me in the morning."
N: "Okay."

The highlight of this exchange came the next morning when he woke up. First, he went to his parents door and in a whisper, "Dad? Dad??"
"What N?"
"Is it morning?"
"yes."
"Okay." and then he padded his way over to where I was and crawled into bed with me.

Okay, so apparently my one (and probably only) reason for not having kids wasn't able to stand up on its own very long, as it was trumped by a far more telling story. Guess someday down the line I'll just have to suck up those early mornings. For the record, children are not in the near future for me, heck, I'll be lucky to have kids before I'm 30 (I know, it's not really that old)! I just tend to think about these things.