The Loft Bed

Today my children are sleeping in a different arrangement than they've done before.   To go back, first there was the pack-and-play.  It's a wee thing, and it works when the babies are little, tiny, weensie things.   Then, comes the crib.   It is huge.  The baby is lost in that massive crib mattress for quite some time, but since they can't roll over, let alone stand up and jump out, it's okay.

As time goes on, they do learn how to stand up and they're eventually going to jump out, so you have to take steps.  In our case, we converted the front wall of the crib into an almost floor-level height with an opening and dropped the mattress down to match.   This is known as a toddler bed.   It's as close to sleeping on the floor as you can get and still be in a bed.

My children have had toddler beds for some time now and those once gargantuan mattresses now look barely large enough for their bodies.    So once again, things had to happen.   We were pondering bunk beds, but at not-quite-three and not-quite-four, we questioned if my children were really old enough for that top bunk portion.  

I mentioned this to my friend and she said, "what you need is a loft bed and you're in luck, I have one and I'm getting rid of it."   This loft bed thing is like bunk beds, only the top level is only up to my chest and the bottom level is a mattress on the floor.   The mattress size though is a full twin.  I had to see this thing because I couldn't picture it, but once I did, I had decided...we needed this thing.

My husband, also, wasn't so sure, but he was willing to go along with me and see what it looked like. He brought it home from their house several days ago and I put it together in the garage to let him see what he thought.   Then we were both sold.

When my children saw it they were ready for it to immediately be in their bedroom and as my son said, "I want it to be bedtime right now."  Since he said this at two o'clock in the afternoon, I knew we were on to something.

This afternoon was rearrangement day.   We put the toddler beds into storage, where they'll stay until they're brought out and converted into their final stage, a full bed, sometime in the future.   The loft bed was brought upstairs and set up with mattresses, waterproof mattress covers and sheets.   Then there was the discussion on who would be on the top bunk.   We decided it should be my son because he's older.   It was rather arbitrary, because I think either child would have been fine up there.

My daughter gets to sleep in a fun "cave" at the bottom.   We put them to sleep tonight and I stuck a glow stick between the slats for her to look at as she went to sleep.   My son was very pleased about his top bunk.

Oh, and those twin mattresses?  They make my children look tiny all over again.

The Big Boy Update:  We got in the car this afternoon and my son was saying something I couldn't understand.   I had to ask him three times and when I realized what he was saying, I understood why I was confused.  He was saying, "I want to see the map", asking for the display on the center console to be changed to the navigation option.   Since my son can't drive a car and doesn't understand GPS, I wasn't expecting him to want to navigate us to Mimi and Gramp's house.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter got very excited while we were in the car sitting at a stop light yesterday.  She cried out, "look, look, look, look, look, look!"   We said, "what is it?" expecting something both interesting and exciting.   "It's a pole" she said.