Jeanette, Lisa, and Larry's blog

This is Larry. I've been busy and Lisa's been posting, so I havent been posting for a while, but the toddler bed story is ummm.... a bit incomplete ..... and at the risk of sleeping on the sofa until Jeanette is big enough to ask "Why does Daddy always sleep on the sofa?", I'm going to fill in some details here, which I'm sure got missed for the sake of brevity and clarity from Lisa's post.

Lisa and I were putting together the toddler bed. Lisa had found some toddler bed online at Target or someplace and had it shipped over to the house. Jeanette figured out she can high tail it out of the crib, so now we have to move her to the toddler bed.

We're making good progress on this thing, putting it together pretty quickly. This is not the first thing either of us have put together, me of the cheapo IKEA persuasion, and I've got a power screwdriver to boot, so I'm pretty good to go. Lisa has been the lucky soul who's had to help me assemble the IKEA stuff, so she's wise of the ways of assembled furniture.

Lisa looks at me after getting some piece screwed in and says approximately "You know, this is pretty easy. I could probably post on the Mother's Center site or something and get paid for assembling this stuff for new moms." In retrospect, I think this is rather like saying "Nothing can stop us now!"

Well, not too long after that, Jeanette comes wandering into the room. This was a big surprise to both of us, as she was previously asleep and the crib was up, so she shouldnt have gotten out. Well, she woke up, saw we werent in the room, and came out to find us.
Over the side of the crib.
Falling to the floor.
A couple of bruises later (thankfully mild and all gone away)
But no crying. Not when she woke up. Not when she jumped out of the crib. This is one tough baby.
One day, when she's a teenager, I'm sure she's going to walk in the door and say something along the lines of "Johnny wont bother me anymore - I beat him up."

But I digress. Back to trying to assemble this thing, after checking over Jeanette for signs of injury.

We get to the last step of assembling the stupid thing, which comprises of screwing the correct end of the two bed guards into the correct side of the bed frame. Then we see the problems.
1. We put in one of the bed frame pieces of wood upside down and backwards.
2. We put in the other guard upside down.

I'm looking at these problems, and I'm thinking, "Oh no - to fix all this we'll need to completely disassemble this stupid thing and put it back together." First of all, that's double work, first to take it apart without breaking anything, and the second to put it together the right way. Second of all, our little sugar pumpkin is awake, overtired, and wants attention. She thinks the bed is some toy and wants to climb up it. That'll help while assembling this thing.

"Hi Jeanette - wanna learn how to use a power screwdriver?" Yeah, that'll get me far with the wife. Let's not say that one.

"Close enough - it's stable - I say we run with it." I'm hoping Lisa is as tired as I am, and will go for it.
No such luck.
She's had some video glued into her brain of some idiot kid who decided to stick their head someplace where it shouldnt be. Yeah, I know, such kindness. And yeah, all kids do stuff that's stupid. Except my little petunia.

So there I am, putting on the automated babysitter (Tivo's got some cartoon we keep around). That'll run 30 minutes. Jeanette is mesmerized by the TV - we'll be fine.
30 mintues later, we've got the stupid thing apart.

No damage, thank god.

Then the show runs out, and we're stuck with a overtired baby and 50 pieces of toddler bed.

Tivo cartoon number 2 goes on.

She's mostly mesmerized, but not completely. We assemble the thing, and she comes over as we're done to get attention and announce her overtired status. I just took her crib mattress and dumped it onto the toddler bed.

She immediately figured it out - she climbed on and went right to sleep.

In the middle of the room. In a unfamiliar bed. A toddler bed, no less, and she's never even seen one of these.

Yeah, we're really lucky.

I was ready to pick up the entire bed, Jeanette and all and put it all in her room.

We tried. The turn into her room was too steep - we couldnt do it. She didnt wake up at all when we were doing this.

But yeah, I saw Lisa's post and had to add a few details......

I think I'll make sure the sofa is cleaned off now......

Jeanette has become quite agile since I last updated this post. A couple of weeks ago I had put Jeanette to bed and went downstairs to do the dishes (yes, I'm behind on getting back to my phone calls because I'm doing dishes. If Larry wasn't helping out by doing laundry my face would be on a milk carton by now). I'm loading the washer when I hear Jeanette. She's not crying but she's babbling loudly and adding the occasional "ma!" to her sentences.

I yell up to Larry and he comes up from the basement (this is easier to picture when you realize my stairs spiral up through the basement and continue up to the second level. Larry meets me on the stairs and asks what's up. I ask if he was upstairs and he says "nooo".

We hear Jeanette again. this time louder. We walk up and meet her at the landing between the first and second floor. She smiles as she continues to walk down the stairs. Larry and I just look at each other. He picks her up and we go upstairs. I'm wondering aloud if I left the crib side down. The upstairs gate has been opened but I chalk that up to my stupidity. I generally try to keep it closed when Jeanette's up there but I have oopsied on that on occasion. We walk to her room and the crib side is up.

she escaped!!

Time to break out the toddler bed.

The next weekend we get we open up the toddler bed box. We put the bed together. I like these assembly things. Kind of get a zen sort of feeling putting something together with my hands. I'm feeling so "this old toddler bed" It starts to look like a bed and I feel confident in my abilities. I wonder if I should start a toy and baby item assmbly business from my home. Bought that toy from target or wal mart where they won't assemble it for ya!! have no fear, I'll do it for ya! (superman soundtrack here)

except I put the slat of wood on the bottom of the bed on upside down. we have to take it apart and reassemble. Larry asks if we can just leave it. it looks like a bed. Simplicity crib recalls and bad assembly jobs replay in my head and I shout "NO!! do you want our daughter strangled by her bed!!! aaaagh!!! didnt you see the recall pictures with the doll's neck stuck in slat of the bed! we have to put it together right!"

so we take the bed apart and larry goes to entertain jeanette who is getting quite bored with sesame street at this time. we put on "Aqua teen hungerforce" and it entertains her. my brain says this is not the most appropriate thing for her to watch but darnit! we have to get the bed put together.

we complete the mission. Larry moves the crib mattress to the toddler bed. Jeanette rolls around in it for a minute, grabs my finger then falls asleep.

I know it's beginners luck for the moment. she's still asleep in it. I'm crossing my fingers


song of the day: hmmm. think four seasons, jersey boys.