Yesterday morning, my almost-18-month-old Sawyer attempted a full gainer dive out of his crib. Lucky for me, I had just gone in his room to wake him up. I was hanging clothes in his little closet a few feet away and was thus able to go horizontal in a move that could only be duplicated on NFL highlight strips and save his life from the sure destruction that awaited below.
I’ve known this was coming. Perhaps it was the time my 3 1/2 year old Tate “got Thawyer up from his nap” while I took 8 minutes to fold a load of laundry. While this sounds adorable in principle, two things were wrong:
1. “Thawyer” had only been asleep for 45 minutes, and had been sleeping peacefully until Tate busted up in his room to say hi because he was bored.
2. (I didn’t see this happen, so this is just an educated guess based on carnage and the aftermath.) Sawyer could lean over the crib at waist level, and Tate is just enough tall enough to grab him and pull him the rest of the way over, but since Tate is not able to hold Sawyer above his head and bring him safely to the carpet, Sawyer lands on top of him, and both boys fall to the ground in an ungraceful heap. Crying. Loudly.
Other clues have come in the form of using the crib like a trampoline, attempts to climb in and out from the outside, and very recently, the boys somehow trapping our cat in the crib.
So it’s time to lower the Sawyer’s bed. (I would also like to take one second to applaud the engineering geniuses who created the convertible crib…running neck and neck with the baby carrier that clips into a car base, these two modern marvels have revolutionized 21st century parenting.) I digress. It’s time for us to lower Sawyer’s crib, and even though I know his safety is of the utmost concern, I’ve been avoiding this.
Okay, moms out there, before you get on your safety high horses, I get it. This isn’t my first rodeo. But it is my last. When Sawyer was born, Jeff and I knew that, though we make incredibly smart, fun, beautiful babies, this precious guy would be our last.
So, yes, I’ve raised and lowered this crib three times now. Three new infants have been gently placed on this same mattress I lovingly picked out in 2006. Three 9-month-olds have pulled up and peeked over the rails of this crib at me while wearing adorable pajamas and diapers. My husband Jeff has cussed this crib and its raising and lowering mechanism (an Allen wrench?!?! and those butterfly thingies?!?) what seems like a hundred times. At least twice, I’ve preemptively lowered this crib before Sarah or Tate pitched headlong over the rail to certain bloody nose or worse. But not for Sawyer…
Okay, moms out there, before you get on your safety high horses, I get it. This isn’t my first rodeo. But it is my last. When Sawyer was born, Jeff and I knew that, though we make incredibly smart, fun, beautiful babies, this precious guy would be our last.
I clearly love him less, right? Too busy to think about this in advance? Nah…I just know that this is the last time. In a few more months, we’ll take the front rail off and convert this crib, one last time, into a toddler bed. Then, someday that I can’t even think about right now, I will put a full-size mattress in front of the headboard that has been there as all three of my children slept. Believe me, there are things about having little kids that I’m ready to be done with, but I’m also sane and sentimental enough to know that I’ll miss this time when it’s gone.
So Sawyer almost did a nosedive out of his crib yesterday morning, and I forced Jeff last night to, one more time, break out the Allen wrench and loosen and tighten the butterfly thingies, and we shared a moment, very brief, of knowing this was the last time we would ever lower the crib….
Leave a Reply