When Your Own Bed just Won't Do

In the last week and half or so, on four separate occasions, I have gone in to check on the kids at night to discover an empty bed. It is a very disconcerting feeling to open the door, do a quick scan of the room, and only count three children. Although rationally I know that there is no way that one of the kids could have DISAPPEARED from the room, I can't help that little bit of panic that starts to grow inside me!

Of course, the missing child is always found, sleeping peacefully somewhere else in the room. The first night it was Zachary missing. I found him curled up in bed with Jonathan. I probably would have left him there if he hadn't at that moment rolled over and kicked Jonathan in the head. The next night it was Reagan. Strangely enough, she was asleep in the floor beside her bed, but not at the foot end of it where there is no railing and she might have rolled off in her sleep. She was asleep at the head end right next to the railing. Odd. The next night it was Zachary again. This time he was in bed with Thomas and actually laid out across Thomas' legs. I don't know how Thomas was sleeping with him like that!

And then there was last night...it was Zachary again. Whose bed is he in this time? I wondered. I scanned the other beds for extra bodies, but found none. I scanned the floor between the beds, nothing. I turned in a circle and scanned the rest of the floor. Had he curled up in a corner somewhere? Nothing! I checked the beds again, looked more closely, lifted blankets, NOTHING! Where in the world could he be?!? I could feel the panic rising. He HAS to be in here! Where? WHERE? In the closet? In a drawer? Under the bed? Hmm...under the bed...Zachary's bed is missing its drawer underneath because the kids played in it and broke it, so there is room to crawl under his bed, and Zachary DOES like to crawl under there. I looked under the bed and sure enough there was a dark toddler-sized mass there. I reached out to feel for skin and make sure it wasn't just a blanket. Eureka! I found him! But did I get him out? No. I went, laughing, to tell Jim first! I wish I could have taken a picture! Jim returned with me and expertly lifted the side of the bed and removed the sleeping child with minimal disturbance.

It reminds me of the time my parents came to check on my sister and me one night when we were very small. We were sharing a double bed pushed up against the wall. Jodie was sleeping next to the wall and I, as the older sister, was sleeping on the outside to make sure she didn't roll off the bed. However, when they came in to check on us, there I was sleeping away, and Jodie was nowhere to be found! They finally located her under the bed. There was no way she fell through by the wall, so we assume she rolled over me, into the floor, and then under the bed, and we both slept through the whole thing. Seriously heavy sleeping!

Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

OR "Big Kid Beds Part 2"

Yes, we are still struggling with our transition into big kid beds. For part 1, click here.

The kids have been in their big beds just under 2 months now. Little has changes since my last post, except the furniture in the room! A couple of weeks ago I went in to get the kids one morning and was surprised to open the door and find two children on top of the dresser, one half-way there, and the fourth waiting her turn to "climb the ladder" they had made by pulling out the dresser drawers. That same afternoon, a loud clunk followed by screaming brought me quickly to their room during "naptime" to discover one child on the table and Thomas wailing at the base of it with a mouth full of blood. I scooped him up and rushed from the room (I think I might have taken a second to get Zachary down off the table before leaving the room) to assess the damage.

Thomas had some extra skin attaching the underside of his upper lip to his gums which we had been warned would bust someday in a fall and bleed a lot, but that it was fine. Well, he had certainly busted that and it did indeed bleed a lot! He had also busted his lip. But I could find nothing more serious, and he perked up pretty fast.

Thomas proudly displays his battle scar

Both of those pieces of furniture were removed from the room that night before bedtime. This brought on a rearrangement of the beds, so now they are all in a row. I like this arrangement much better, and it has certainly been kinder to my legs. I don't run into the beds every time I turn around anymore, and the huge bruises have been allowed to heal!

Four little beds all in a row, but Daddy didn't put them in birth order, and REMARKABLY I haven't changed them

So I continue to be the warden in their room when it's time to go to sleep. At naptime I stay in their room until all four children have fallen asleep which has taken anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half. Most days it's about 30 minutes. In the long run this is worth the effort because I am almost guaranteed a full hour if not more of total sleeping peace once they are all asleep. If I don't wait until they are all asleep, as soon as I'm gone, whoever is awake jumps out of bed and wakes the sleepers up and it's party time! Then there is NO PEACE AT ALL! So it's worth the sacrifice of time to wait on them to all fall asleep.

At night I don't wait for them to all fall asleep. I stay in their room until they seem calm, and then I leave. Then Jim and I trade off going back in there when they are too loud or out of bed or whatever inappropriate behavior is going on. Eventually they all go to sleep. Some nights we only have to go in a handful of times. Other nights it feels like one of us is in there every five minutes for up to two hours!

It seems like we get into a pattern of good nights, but then if ANYTHING out of the ordinary happens they get all riled up and we start a series of bad nights. Just about the time we get back into the good nights, something disrupts the pattern and we start all over again. But it just can't be helped!

And so we continue this big bed transition. I keep reminding myself that it won't be like this forever. Someday they'll understand. Won't they? Sigh...