Proving Once Again that Ren is Actually a Superhero in Disguise

Adding to the list of choices I know I will regret?

Bunk Beds.

The tadpole scenario played out as expected,* so clearly I need to get my thrills and chills elsewhere.

Every parent I know with bunk beds hates them. It's next-to-impossible to make the beds in the morning, and changing the sheets takes real commitment. Plus, there's always a chance a kid will plummet to the ground in a groggy attempt to make a midnight trip to the bathroom. And I know Sky and Pink P will invent a game that requires alternate paths to the top bunk (and down again).

I know all this, and yet...And yet, when I saw this, the choice was clear. I had to have these bunk beds.



Curse you Costco! Curse you! I tried to resist, I really did. But this set up was $500 cheaper than any other I'd seen, and I had been feeling guilty about forcing my taller-than-average four-year old to sleep in a toddler bed.

So, on Saturday, I left Ren home with the kids, and headed with a friend to the nearest Costco fifty miles (or, over an hour) away. By the time we got a flat-bed cart and found someone to help us load the bed onto it, an Asian couple was wheeling the last bunk beds "in stock" out the door. Perhaps I should have taken this as a sign from God. But, I didn't. Instead, I drove to a second Costco 20 minutes away and managed to snag the last one there. (Apparently it was buy-a-bunk-bed day at Costco.) Amazingly, the two boxes and twin mattress fit perfectly into the back of the car, and after a quick trip to Target to buy bedding for the new beds (ponies for Pink P and Star Wars for Sky), we headed home.



Years of packing and unpacking with kids have taught Ren and I that we can only get things done in the dead of night when the kids are asleep. So, we settled Sky and Pink P into an indoor "camp out" in the study and finally began building the bed around 9:30 p.m. First, we carried the bed piece by piece from the car. Then, after considerable deliberation and three furniture rearrangements, we started putting it together.

By 1 a.m., we had this:



Things were looking good. I even allowed myself to entertain the notion that I might get to sleep.

Then catastrophe struck. The washing machine tried to eat Pink P's new comforter, leaving it mangled.

Fortunately, I'm married to a superhero, because at 2:00 a.m., Ren was doing this:



And then, we had this (sorry I didn't take a "before" picture of the gaping hole. I was too distraught):



I know it's not beautiful, but it looks way better than anything I would have pulled off, and it kept me from having a major mommy meltdown. Oh, and the only reason Ren let me post this picture of his "inferior" handiwork (see the uneven stitching?) is because I assured him you would understand that he doesn't do his best sewing at 2:00 in the morning in a semi-dark room, especially when his back hurts.

Finally, at 2:45 a.m. (and four loads of laundry later), we had this:



*****

Of course the kids are thrilled. And I'm pretty happy about the unintended bonus: Sky thinks his new bed is the perfect escape when his senses start to be overloaded.

We already had the tent for hiding:



And the swing for calming:



And now we have the top bunk for when he needs to "take a break":



Maybe next we will even have a night or two of uninterrupted sleep.




*Except instead of growing two frogs in Dagoba Swamp, we buried one, and released the other into a friend's pond; apparently that sucker needs at least another year before he springs some legs. I won't lie. I'm not heartbroken that I won't see him become a full-grown bullfrog.