A Tale of Two Cribs

The pre-National Guard playroom.
There were two brothers who shared together. There were two brothers who fought together.During dad’s week home with the tots, there was some furniture rearranging, which needed to happen. The Stubers lived prior to that week wondering when Child Services would show up due to the children standing in the upstairs window every morning. The double bed that had served as baby staging area, second changing station, sometimes parent nap place, trampoline, and medicine administration point of service had changed. It had become the morning path to the window because it was shoved up against the wall. Once to the window, little feet fit nicely on the sill and hands hold on just right to the locks, and it is just wide enough to accommodate two toddlers greeting the day from the second story. It had to be moved.A happy coincidence of having to rearrange the room to move the bed, is that the toddler’s cribs wound up right next to each other. Mom and dad had dreams of peeking in on their children sleeping quietly in the night holding hands across cribs. (Naïve perhaps, but you actually read people saying this happens in the Twin magazine.) They can play together before falling asleep! They can comfort each other in the night through the slats! In the morning they can chatter quietly as the day breaks!Or, you can deal with reality.Sunday afternoon nap:Trip to the room one: Mom comes in to calm everyone down. She finds that Nicholas has taken every single clean diaper that his little arm can reach off of the changing table and passed them out amongst himself and his brother. They are now each sitting in a pile of diapers, tearing them apart. The changing table is moved away from the crib and shoved in the corner.Trip to the room two: Mom comes in to shut up the escalating screams for GAGGEEEE! (read: “gah-gee”, which has somehow evolved from “uker,” which is the toddler version of “yucker,” which is the father’s version of “pacifier.”) Child one has given his pacifier to his brother and brother will not return it. Another pacifier is given to the toddler who no longer has one.Trip to the room three: A repeat of trip to the room two, only the children have reversed roles. The toddler who previously had no pacifier is now holding three and the other is screaming at the top of his lungs.The final solution? Haul the children out of their cribs and start moving furniture. It doesn’t even matter where at this point as long as the cribs are not together and none is touching the changing table. This is trickier than it sounds with a full size bed in the room. The changing station is moved into the closet. The bookshelf is pinned against the door. A crib with wheels is flung to the far corner. The bed, holding toddlers who have been instructed not to move an inch, is wheeled around and around in search of a place to land. The bookshelf is moved into the closet. The changing table is moved back to the room. The cribs are separated by the bed. This is reconsidered. The changing table is shoved back in the closet, the bookshelf drug back to its original spot. A crib is nearly shoved into the closet. Children have escaped the bed, and a screaming infant was brought in at some point and is now sleeping in one of the cribs while the toddlers begin pushing their toys around mimicking their mother. Where is the other infant? We have no idea at this point.And in the end, the puzzle fit together and no child is touching another or the changing table. The bed has stayed and the bookshelf has been banished to the closet. This means that the diaper wipes had to leave their home atop the bookshelf and live down on the changing table. The children must have been eyeing them all night because the first thing Benjamin did Monday morning was march straight to the changing table and pull out the wipes in an effort to begin distributing them.As night closes on National Guard weekend, we are thankful that it darkens the mess so we can ignore it.And so life marches on in a continual struggle to beat the toddlers at their own game.