A few days ago, the toddler decided to escape from his crib. Our world hasn't been the same. Mornings start at 5 a.m. Evenings drag on until 11 p.m. My husband cries as I heartlessly shove him out of bed to "deal with the baby" and we both have been drowning our sorrows in ice cream, even though swimsuit season is looming dangerously on the horizon.
The little man has always been an adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude.
His actions are usually adorable, but his hours are exhausting. Almost exhausting enough to drive us to this:
Which, in case you were wondering, is a shotgun sized (and SHAPED) bottle of Tequila.
We feel a little low, brought down by a 22 month old in a diaper. It's humbling, but we're too tired to care.
In desperation I asked my friends on Facebook, "How do you keep a one year old in their bed?!"
The overwhelming consensus was Duct Tape.
Someone also proffered a "baby tent" which could also be accurately called "baby prison with built in malaria deferment"...or even "baby cage of doom" considering it has been recalled because of safety issues.
My friend Brittany, who would be disowned after today if she didn't wear Darth Vader pajamas all the time, suggested he fall asleep while watching The Hobbit...because it's boring. EXCEPT IT'S NOT! It's a great movie.
There were also suggestions to drug him, to turn the door knob around and lock him in his room and to put up a baby gate. One of my favorites was "grease the railings with butter".
Some people suggested to just go with it and let him sleep in our bed...which I WOULD have considered if he would SLEEP.
Then my friend Kayla suggested taking out the spring thing that holds the mattress up and putting the mattress on the ground INSIDE the crib.
Then this came up:
JoAnn: I just looked at his crib and there is more space at the bottom than yours, so if I dropped the mattress he would still have a crawl space. WHY ARE YOU AGAINST ME UNIVERSE?!
JoAnn You mommies are all a little bit insane...and I LIKE IT. can we look on pinterest and figure out how to make them VODKA infused smores? Because then I'm in.
Kayla Put some big books under the mattress to raise it a bit? How about some concrete blocks? But seriously...books?
So finally, after hours of cyber hand holding we finally came up with this. Finally:
Derrick lowered the mattress to the ground, added Q's old McQueen bumper to the exposed side with a crack, and at bedtime? Sweet, sweet screams of anger coming from the little man in his crib. They lasted for two seconds and then he fell asleep, because he is exhausted, because he has been partying HARD the last few days.
Cheers!
Update: he climbed out tonight. Then my husband saw him straddling the top of the crib. It was too much for me (I worried about him falling), and I had my husband convert it to a toddler bed. After that, he (the baby, not my husband) got out of bed one more time, but I took away his beloved Mater matchbox car. He yelled, "Matador! Matador!" until I put him in bed and gave it to him, again explaining that Mater is not allowed out of bed. I also put a child safety gate in front of the door so he can't wander around the house and bake cookies at midnight. We shall see. Nothing is certain anymore.
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