Crib Notes

No, this is not a column dedicated to teach your child to cheat without getting caught.
Rather, the rite of passage your little one goes through.
The one where you cease to call the nursery by that name and refer to it as simply a bedroom.
As my wife reminded me one day when we were discussing ideas on how to decorate the half-bath in our house.
We were discussing what color of paint to use.  She referred to "that leftover green paint" that we had in the basement.
"The stuff we used in the nursery?" I asked her.
"Well, it's her bedroom now," she said.
Just the week before, we transitioned our three-year-old from her crib to a 'big-girl' bed, concurrent with her third birthday.
While Margie was pregnant, I pretty much left the details to her as to how she wanted to furnish the nursery for our impending arrival.  She selected a convertible style crib, one that could go from a crib to a day bed and then finally as a full-size double bed.  It would be something our daughter would be able to use all through her childhood, and beyond.
It was a solid hardwood, so it was definitely something that would last if properly taken care of.
Putting it together as a crib shortly before Savannah's birth was sheer Hell.  I'd personally like to shoot whomever was responsible for inventing those so-called "barrel nuts".
Snapping at my wife, throwing tools and yelling four-letter words so loud that Savannah would likely have heard them in the womb, was enough to make me wonder "would it really be a bad thing if she slept between us in our bed until she's out of the crib?"
Yeah, right.
Then I found my cordless power screwdriver that my wife had given me two Christmases ago and that I had completely forgotten about.
Salvation at last.  The crib went together with ease after that.
Then Margie rescued the instructions for the crib that she had safely hidden away for when the time came to dismantle the crib and put together the full-size bed.
As she looked at the directions, she informed me of something I was unaware of.
"We weren't supposed to use a cordless screwdriver," she said.
I raised my eyebrows.  "What?"
"They say not to use power tools."
I think that to be more of a liability issue.  You can't put this dadburn thing together any other way.             So guess what...that's how this job is getting done.
And that's how it did.
Carefully QC'd afterwards, of course.
And when we presented the finished product to Savannah, she was overjoyed.  It was as if she had grown a foot overnight and could reach everything in sight.
Ironically, we found she needed a stepstool just to climb into the bed.  A gift from her aunt and uncle some time ago fitted the bill nicely.
Our biggest fear was her getting up in the middle of the night and waking us up, wanting to play.
It has yet to be realized, because she doesn't know she can climb out of bed at her leisure.  She thinks she still needs us to help her out.
And we're going to ride that one out.  For as long as it takes.


NEXT WEEK:  Wild Thing