Cheap Motif
We recently moved Abbie into a toddler bed. She’d been in a toddler bed for a few months now, but this is a completely different toddler bed. After having slept in a toddler bed, a crib, a Pack ‘N Play, and two different hospital cribs, plus the occasional nap in an infant carrier, a car seat, mommy and daddy’s bed, and the floor, we figured that moving her into another toddler bed shouldn’t be too traumatic.
We borrowed her old bed from one of Ellie’s coworkers, and now she wants it back. Her bed is a beautiful piece of wooden furniture that converts from a crib, to a toddler bed, to a daybed, to a dismantled dust-collector in the basement because no one really wants a daybed. The owner was moving to a new house with her post-toddler aged children and, possibly realizing the worthlessness of a daybed, offered it for our family’s use if we’d move it for her. Plus I think Ellie effectively played the sympathy card with our then-impending twins.
Now we’ve adjusted to life with the twins, thereby losing our sympathy, and the owner has a use for her bed again and wants it back. Our first step in ending our freeloading ways was to buy a toddler bed. We took Abbie to our favorite discount baby supplier, by which I mean they supply cheap goods for babies, not that they supply bargain basement priced babies, and let her pick out a toddler bed. They had racecar beds, fire truck beds, princess beds, and more, but what caught her eye were the swings in the adjacent aisle, so we made the decision for her.
The aforementioned novelty beds were large in size and price, which didn’t fit our home or our budget, so those were immediately ruled out. They had smaller wooden beds, which were nice but pricey. Our final candidates were a cheap plastic bed emblazoned with Dora,* and a super-cheap metal bed emblazoned with white paint. We went with the super-cheap bed, making up for our niggardliness by buying her a Dora bed set and Dora stickers to decorate it. Plus the girlish Dora bed would be harder than the plain white one to hand down to one of the boys, probably Ian since Tory already has a convertible crib-toddler bed in that same super-cheap white motif.
Next we had to dissemble the borrowed bed. This proved to be a challenge since I’d lost the bag that contained the instructions and spare hardware. Feeling like a heel for failing to care for someone’s borrowed property, I tore the house apart trying to find it. After much stomping and grumbling and fearing that we might actually have to do some cleaning in the basement to uncover it, we found the bag and started work swapping the beds about an hour before her naptime.
Dissembling went quickly since we didn’t have to worry about which screw goes in which hole. Assembling the new bed was fast as well since it was cheap and had few pieces. We finished the switch a few minutes past her naptime, and I cleaned up while Ellie helped her affix stickers to the frame. At least Ellie thought she was helping; Abbie had to repeatedly correct her by moving them to show that stickers only go on the main frame, not the smaller crossbars.
With the bed decorated, we finished the naptime routine, shut the door, and hoped for the best. I was afraid that she might be reluctant to accept a new bed, or that she might spend the entire naptime peeling off stickers and finding new spots on the frame and her shirt to stick them. Fortunately she fell asleep after an only slightly longer than usual session of bouncing around the room. It’s been a few days since the switch, and she never showed any misgivings about moving to a different bed. I hope she keeps that mindset because she’s going to have to switch at least one more time before we ship her off to college.
* For the uninitiated, Dora is from “Dora the Explorer,” which is Abbie’s favorite TV show, by which I mean it’s the only thing I let her watch.
We borrowed her old bed from one of Ellie’s coworkers, and now she wants it back. Her bed is a beautiful piece of wooden furniture that converts from a crib, to a toddler bed, to a daybed, to a dismantled dust-collector in the basement because no one really wants a daybed. The owner was moving to a new house with her post-toddler aged children and, possibly realizing the worthlessness of a daybed, offered it for our family’s use if we’d move it for her. Plus I think Ellie effectively played the sympathy card with our then-impending twins.
Now we’ve adjusted to life with the twins, thereby losing our sympathy, and the owner has a use for her bed again and wants it back. Our first step in ending our freeloading ways was to buy a toddler bed. We took Abbie to our favorite discount baby supplier, by which I mean they supply cheap goods for babies, not that they supply bargain basement priced babies, and let her pick out a toddler bed. They had racecar beds, fire truck beds, princess beds, and more, but what caught her eye were the swings in the adjacent aisle, so we made the decision for her.
The aforementioned novelty beds were large in size and price, which didn’t fit our home or our budget, so those were immediately ruled out. They had smaller wooden beds, which were nice but pricey. Our final candidates were a cheap plastic bed emblazoned with Dora,* and a super-cheap metal bed emblazoned with white paint. We went with the super-cheap bed, making up for our niggardliness by buying her a Dora bed set and Dora stickers to decorate it. Plus the girlish Dora bed would be harder than the plain white one to hand down to one of the boys, probably Ian since Tory already has a convertible crib-toddler bed in that same super-cheap white motif.
Next we had to dissemble the borrowed bed. This proved to be a challenge since I’d lost the bag that contained the instructions and spare hardware. Feeling like a heel for failing to care for someone’s borrowed property, I tore the house apart trying to find it. After much stomping and grumbling and fearing that we might actually have to do some cleaning in the basement to uncover it, we found the bag and started work swapping the beds about an hour before her naptime.
Dissembling went quickly since we didn’t have to worry about which screw goes in which hole. Assembling the new bed was fast as well since it was cheap and had few pieces. We finished the switch a few minutes past her naptime, and I cleaned up while Ellie helped her affix stickers to the frame. At least Ellie thought she was helping; Abbie had to repeatedly correct her by moving them to show that stickers only go on the main frame, not the smaller crossbars.
With the bed decorated, we finished the naptime routine, shut the door, and hoped for the best. I was afraid that she might be reluctant to accept a new bed, or that she might spend the entire naptime peeling off stickers and finding new spots on the frame and her shirt to stick them. Fortunately she fell asleep after an only slightly longer than usual session of bouncing around the room. It’s been a few days since the switch, and she never showed any misgivings about moving to a different bed. I hope she keeps that mindset because she’s going to have to switch at least one more time before we ship her off to college.
* For the uninitiated, Dora is from “Dora the Explorer,” which is Abbie’s favorite TV show, by which I mean it’s the only thing I let her watch.
posted by Matt at
11:31 PM
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