It Was Great While It Lasted

The kids are almost three, but they are still in cribs.  When friends would ask me how long I was going to keep them in cribs, my response was that they’d be in cribs for as long as they’d stay in the cribs.  I often added that they’d go to college in cribs if they were willing.

Well, they won’t be going to college in cribs.

In fact, they probably won’t make it through the weekend in cribs.

Right now I’m thankful that we had the foresight to go ahead and purchase the toddler conversion kits when we bought the cribs. 

I’ve known for quite a while that the kids were capable of getting out of their cribs – but the kids just didn’t know it.  The kids even climb into their own cribs at night.  They just never seemed to climb out as well.  But when we got home today, Miss Sally told us that during naptime she found the kids in one of their closets.  Not cool.  But I assumed that would be a naptime thing and not a bedtime thing.

Gary and I put the kids in bed and I ran downstairs to grab my iPhone so that I could check out Facebook while I nursed Penelope.  Gary and I barely hit the bottom step when we heard the bedroom door slam.  We decided to just ignore it.  My thoughts are that they may stay up late tonight and for a day or two, but eventually their need to sleep will catch up with them after a few days and they will have to go to sleep at night (please, let me enjoy that hope).

Then Henry started screaming.  Not screaming like he was sort of upset, but screaming like he was really not okay.  I went in the bedroom and it was a disaster with everything all over the floors, and Henry was very upset.  He kept telling me that he wanted the door open.  I told everyone to get in bed, then tucked everyone in again and left.  I barely sat down in Penelope’s room across the hall when the door slammed, and Henry started screaming again.  I assumed that he was scared of the dark, but now we think that he just didn’t like the door being closed.  Anyway, since this was clearly going to be an “issue” I told Gary what was going on and closed Penelope’s door to nurse her while Gary handled the door issue. 

I heard lots of coming and going in the room while Gary tried to solve the problem, followed by a lot of hammering.  At first I thought I was just hearing things, but no, the hammering continued.  The longer I sat there, the longer I started getting worked up about exactly what Gary was doing in there.  I was a little surprised, perhaps a little relieved, and definitely amused, when I put Penelope in bed and walked out of her room to see this, which I captured with my handy iPhone camera:

Well, that’s one way to keep the door open.

Always thinking outside the box.  That’s my Gary.

More than two hours after bedtime, we could still hear everyone up there playing.  Well, actually, the girls were playing and Henry sounded nothing short of traumatized by everything.  I don’t think that he likes the idea of sleeping while he is vulnerable to attack by the girls. 

Gary and I have been tossing around a lot of ideas tonight.  We have definitely decided to convert the cribs to toddler beds.  But if Henry continues dislike the girls’ free reign, we may have to turn the guest bedroom (a/k/a Nana’s room) into Henry’s room.  We’ll give him a few days to see if he’s going to make it or not.

We just heard a little more noise than one should hear, and went upstairs to see what was going on.  Everyone quickly laid down and acted like they were going to sleep (again, courtesy of my iPhone):

Yes, on the floor.

Maybe we won’t convert the cribs into toddler beds after all.  We can just throw a few blankets on the floor and be done with it.

P.S.  They are still awake.  And playing.  God help us all.