A New Bed Sept 29, 2007

Life has changed, irrevocably.

The twins have a new bed.

It's a double, they can both sleep in it. In fact, 5yo big sister could fit into it as well, but then there's that "sleep" part that won't happen. We got it from Grandma's estate. I picked up a comforter that's kinda retro, pink and brown, to go with the actual truly 60's comforter on the 5yo's bed. It came from Aunt J.

At 4 years of age, the twins don't wet the bed anymore, they are totally potty trained. Although I do have to encourage the use of toilet paper and flushing. They love jumping on their new bed. The cats like to sleep on it, too.

The irrevocable change is that there are No More Cribs.

No crib with a younger toddler sibling.

No crib, scrubbed and filled with birthing supplies, waiting for the next baby.

No crib cluttered with stuffed animals and blankies, and a sippy cup in there *somewhere* (in the dark-- with a 2yo dying of thirst-- at 2am).

I can never have the darling canopy that I had always dreamed of but was too busy having babies to make.

I remember putting the first crib together in 1990. We were still in California. I was still pregnant. Dh and I set it up in the living room. We had to follow the instructions, even. It was brand new, all white. He leaned a part up against the piano and it fell over, costing us a couple of hundred dollars to fix the deep scratch it left on the way down. (Never lean metal parts on a baby grand.) Then we had to take it apart again to get it into the bedroom.

I remember, a few weeks later, hovering over the crib, shielding my brand new baby during the aftershocks of the Big One -- the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989. The aftershocks continued for months into 1990.

I remember moving, and having the crib packed away, and our baby sleeping in the pack-n-play, until we got settled in our new home. He was heavy and it was deep. I was so glad to get him back into the crib!

We moved him into a twin bed, and moved his baby sister into the crib when she grew out of the cradle. And it went on that way, for years. We eventually got another crib, too, as often the two-year-old wasn't really ready to leave the security of a crib. That crib got taken down and stored on a regular basis.

But that day, THE day, that the cribs came down for the last time, my oldest sons took them down. Those babies who chewed on the rungs, climbed over the rails, got their legs stuck between the rungs, fell out head-first... they took them down. With their own tools. One of them shaves. They are both taller than me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't even watch.

Where do the years go? Who said they could fly by in the wink of an eye? There's been a baby in the house since 1990. Now there are no more.

I had them store the cribs in the attic.




And, someday, there will be grandbabies.