Have you ever seen a child who is asleep in their crib and wakes up, sits for a minute & thinks to himself ‘I am breaking outta this joint.’? You know they’re thinking those thoughts because soon afterwards they look up at the monitor’s camera (yes, they know what that is) & then they make a break for it. Pulling themselves up. Doing a push up on the railing & (not so gracefully) swinging a leg over the side. In a few seconds they’re now riding the crib rail like a horse and they realize ‘this is the moment that makes a person. I either jump. Or I don’t.’. 

No? Never experienced that? You mean, it’s just me? Only my child would ever do such a thing?

 Oh, ok then. Nevermind. 

This weekend we stopped riding the [crib] rails & moved into a “big boy” bed. It’s been an interesting few days. 

Friday night we put N to bed for his last sleep in his crib. And then, we opened a bottle of wine (because that’s just how we handle transition & furniture building around here)  & started putting together the new bed. 

Now, if you haven’t ever seen a toddler try & break out of a crib certainly you’ve seen a grown man refuse to read the directions, try & insist on using power tools when power tools are NOT needed, begin to claim “an idiot must have drilled these holes” & occasionally throw pieces of the bed (& 4 letter words) around the room until he gets so mad that he stomps off which prompts you (the only sane one left) to use the directions and assemble the bed in under 30 minutes. 

Yes?. Great.

No?. Well, that is the story of how the Szapacs family puts together a toddler bed. Let is be a cautionary tale for you.

Once the bed was together & my husband’s ego was on the mend, we went to bed. For our last night of sleep with a “caged” toddler. 

The next day we took apart the crib (N helped because we had talked about a new bed and he was soooo excited). I told Andy we needed to take out the changing table &other furniture items because I didn’t want N to try and play/ climb on them when he should be sleeping. What I should have said is “please take down the curtains. Chainsaw? Sure put in the room. A ladder? Yeah, that’s fine to leave in the corner. Just…whatever you do, take down the curtains.” The curtains are our new favorite toy. And sleep procrastination tool. Heaven help me.

In all seriousness N handled the transition fine. Yes, he does like to hide behind the curtains. Yes, he does know what the monitor is & he stares at it before doing anything he shouldn’t. Yes, we removed all dangerous furniture. We did not leave a ladder or chainsaw in his room. And yes, only sometimes does he willingly without distraction go to sleep.