Bedtime

When Thor moved out of his crib and into a twin bed, I took him to Toys R Us and told him he could pick out a bed.  I thought he would be excited at the prospect of getting a race car, or Thomas the Train, or something else equally as huge, plastic, and attractive to children.  I thought that getting his buy-in, and letting him be involved in the selection process would aid in our attempts to get him to spend full nights in his own room.  I walked him down the bed aisle and he oohed and aahed over each, petting them, and considering them.  I asked, “So which bed do you want?”

“I don’t need a bed,” he answered, shaking his head and waving one hand at me, his face serious, but unperturbed.  As he toddled away from the beds, down toward another aisle, he called, “I have yours.”

I ended up buying him a bunkbed, because I had always wanted one, and he was terrified to sleep on the bottom bunk.  So I took the slats out of the upper half of the top, put them in the lower half and built him an observation deck, complete with captain’s wheel.  That way, he had a place to play (and put his animals), and he could see the ceiling.

I’d like for you to guess how much good that did me.

We sold the bunkbed a year later.

Thor has asked if I could produce a sibling for him, so that he wouldn’t have to sleep alone in his room.  It made me remember how much I hated sleeping in my room alone, at his age.  It seemed so unfair that my parents got to stay in their room together, but I had to be shut out, alone, left to my own devices.  The life of an Only Child.

Y’all, I still want a bunkbed.