Early Present

You know about the bunk beds we were going to buy. I may have even told you we bought them. We picked them up about a week ago, in five quite heavy, cumbersome boxes we had a hard time squeezing into the minivan, even with all the seats down.

Our plan was to have my parents watch the kids for a couple of hours on Christmas Eve (no, really, the guy at the furniture store said it should only take an hour "with both of you working on it" hahahahahahahahaha), assemble the beds, then come back down to get the kids. Then we started thinking . . . Christmas Eve, they'll be excited already, new beds . . . Plus, we're leaving the day after Christmas to head up South (Florida joke), and they'd only get to sleep in them for two nights.

So, what about this weekend? As planned, we took the kids down to my parents so we could "do some Christmas stuff", a comment in which Emily seemed disappointingly disinterested.

We cleared a space, removed the old mattresses, and, of course, took some pictures.

First, the boxes, the space for the beds, all the pieces laid out and ready . . .






Oh, and before starting any job like this . . .



Don't forget to charge your power screwdriver.

The photos, naturally, don't do justice to all the tight-space screwdriver work that had to be done, all the Allen wrenches we successfully stripped attaching the bed rails, or the way both of us seem to use the other's name as a kind of curse word when we are frustrated. Or the fact that real, actual curse words were employed. But we did it.

The hardest part was definitely lifting the top bunk onto the bottom bunk, especially for me. I failed the first time and we had to carefully, painfully replace the bunk on the floor again. C went and got me a plastic bin on which to stand. And hoist again. Actual construction time from box to finish was probably closer to 3 1/2 hours.





We quick (!) made the beds, threw the blankets on top and photographed our handiwork, with the late afternoon sun sparkling through the windows.





Someone made the obligatory Big Lebowski joke about the bed "really tying the room together" although "dominating" might be more accurate. The bunk bed is a large piece of furniture and the room is very small. We can open all the doors and drawers, though, and there's floor space to play, so it's all good.

Then we went down to my parents' house to eat dinner. We even talked about putting the beds together right in front of the kids. A couple of times Emily said, "What are you talking about?" I said either, "Putting something together" or "You'll see when you get home." Even with my deliberately limited subtlety, she didn't seem to catch on. She just said, "Oh" and carried on destroying her ham sandwich and dipping her grapes-on-toothpicks in her water.

When we got home, we had to take care of a pee pee emergency (for Penny). This required one of us to run into their room for a change of pants for Penny, lest the excited photo shot we had planned be ruined or compromised by her clothelessness from the waist down. Once Penny was re-pantsed, I said, "Okay, into your room, both of you!"

"Why, Mommy?" said Emily.

"There's a present in there for you," I said, "Go quick!" And they were already gone.




They're definitely happy about it. They actually seemed happy about going to bed, which isn't the usual state of affairs around here. Penny was given strict orders not to climb up to the top bunk. Emily was given strict orders to call us if Penny started to climb the ladder. Daddy lifted Penny up just so she could see what she'd be missing (no, that's not why he did it--we were all just giddy). She did not want to come down.





But she did. They took baths, read stories. Bonus: we can all fit on the bottom bunk to read together! No more sitting on the floor (after I broke the toddler bed)!

Now we're waiting for them to fall asleep, in their proper bunks . . . All's quiet . . .