A place to lay your head

Okay, so.   I was at a MOPS (stands for Mothers of Preschoolers, a.k.a. Women Who Herd Cats All Day Long) playdate last week, where I was talking with one of the other moms about her son’s new sleeping arrangements.  She was telling me about moving the kid out of his crib and into a toddler bed, which he has taken to like the pro sleeper she seems to have given birth to.

I’m sure my mouth was agape the entire time she was telling me this.  Not in disbelief, but utter jealousy that a) she has such apparently compliant children and b) she has children who sleep through the night.

Oh, and c) also amazement at my mom friend’s bravery because her now-big-boy-bed-sleeping son is 20 months.  Three days younger than my Ashley.  Whom I have no plans to move from the crib until she gets too long for it or can catapult herself out of it, whichever comes first.

Ashley doesn’t even have a pillow in her crib.  I’ve tried to give her one, but she doesn’t want it.  She prefers to sleep with her face planted in the mattress and her butt in the air, reminiscent of an ostrich with its head in the sand.

She also doesn’t have any covers.  Doesn’t want those, either.  She sleeps in a Sleep Sack and cuddly jammies in the warmest room of the house, so she’s plenty toasty.  Sure, she still wakes up at least once a night, but I think that’s more because I give birth to children who think sleep is optional than a comfort thing.

Thing is, I hadn’t even considered transitioning Ashley out of the crib yet.  For one thing, there are benefits to the crib, including but not limited to the fact that I don’t have to go get her the minute I hear her.  As in, she can lay in there and talk to herself and play with her stuffed friends while I finish my coffee.  Or read the rest of the chapter of my book.  Or sit quietly for five minutes, bracing myself for the noise onslaught that is soon to take over my day.

A big girl bed means she would be able to get up the moment she wakes up.  And she wakes up awfully early most days, with energy a tornado would envy.  It’s nice to be able to unleash that energy on my terms in the morning, know what I mean?

There is, of course, the possibility that I’m scarred by the experience of trying to move Alissa into a toddler bed.  You can read about it here, but the nutshell version is that we tried to move Alissa to a big girl bed (the first time) at 23 months and it was a fiasco.  Granted, I was 8 months pregnant and hormonal as all get out, but the experience ended with me sobbing and begging Brad to put the crib rail back on the bed.

In the near future, though, we’re going to need to transition Alissa out of her toddler bed and into a regular-sized bed.  We’ve been talking about bunk beds for the girls and keeping tabs on Craigslist to see if any gently used ones pop up.  (Do you know how expensive those things are?  Yowza.)  And I have to admit it would be nice if we could just transition Ashley to the bunk bed at the same time, circumventing the move to a toddler bed altogether.  I also have to admit that it would be nice to get the girls into one room together and get the third bedroom (where Ashley sleeps) back to my office.  It’s kinda hard to work in there when Ashley’s napping, the time of day I get the most stuff done.

Right now, I’m not going to mess with it.  Sometimes change takes a lot of work and I’ll have to get myself geared up for it mentally.  In the meantime, we’ll keep looking for bunk beds and thinking about how we can best utilize our space.

Oh, and by the way, this is the kind of bunk bed Alissa has decided would be WAY cool to have:

Um, yeah, a bed with a slide.  My children would probably never sleep again.  But what little princess wouldn’t want to sleep in a castle?  I kinda think it’s cool myself.