Ruh. Roh.

A few months back I wrote about one of my favorite new books, The Chicken Problem.  Low and behold, we found it debuted in October of 2013 as a PBS cartoon called Peg + Cat that is completely true to the original.  My Christmas project has actually put me on the cutting edge of something?  Of course it’s preschool literature, but I’ll take what I can get.

So, Peg + Cat is always about a problem.  Or a “ploblem” as Nate would say.  The Pirate Ploblem,  The Baby Ploblem, The Doohickey Ploblem.  It’s a good opportunity to talk about what is actually a big problem, and what is just a slight problem that is being blown out of proportion for the sake of a cartoon plot line.  There is always one part where Peg shrieks, “Big problem!  I am totally freaking out!”.  Then she counts backward from five to calm down.

Which leads me to one of our latest and very real problems— The Queen Bed Problem.

Now before I go into this— a quick story.

Back when Nate was two-and-a-half, I remember taking him and Jakey to the library park.  Nate disappeared behind the wall of the play structure recommended for 5-12 year olds.  He’d grown bored with the age appropriate jungle gym.

A minute later, he popped-up at the top of the 12 foot high playground.  Turned out that he had no problem navigating the climbing wall hand and foot holds.  I made a mental note.

Fast forward five months to about three weeks ago.  James was resting while the boys were taking a nap.  Well, while Nate was taking a nap.  Jake mostly just “plays quietly.”

So Nate was in his crib and then, BING! Nate is silently standing next to our bed.  Like a magical, preschool apparition.

James failed to mention this to me until the next morning when, there he is, BING! standing next to my side of the bed.  Ruh roh.

When did Nate learn how to escape from his crib?!

Jacob never did learn how to get out of his crib unassisted.  First, I attribute it to the ingeniuos design of tall bars and a modern, slippery aesthetic… no good spots for chubby hands or toes to get a good grip.  One must wait until one’s legs are long enough to completely straddle the top bar and still reach the mattress from both sides.  Second, I kept him hobbled in sleep sacks for as long as possible.  I also may have offhandedly mentioned that it looked like a really far drop if one were to jump for it.

Of course Nate figured out how to get his zip-up blanket off at least a year ago.  And jumping from high places has never been much of a deterent.

Now we have… the Queen Bed Problem.  Which frankly we’ve had for quite awhile because the big one shows up unannounced on a somewhat regular basis.  The good news is that he’s been waiting till about 5am of late.  But now you add another Kicky Kickerson who has to snuggle up to me and I might as well make myself a nap mat on the floor.  There is just not enough room for four people in our bed, even if we all lay on our backs with our arms at our sides.  If you’ve never seen the Baby Sleep Positions diagram, you have got to follow this link.  I think maybe I’ll request an updated diagram with 2 full-size preschoolers.

So it looks like our one socially acceptable form of baby jail is toast.  Big problem.  I am totally freaking out!  Well, not really… but still.