jailhouse bunk bed blues

This morning I woke up coughing, way too early. So I finished my novel, then stared at the final page for a long while, listening to the dark murmuring house. The murmurs grew louder after six: the heating system whooshed, bed springs down the hall creaked, and when Mike clicked on the gas burner beneath the red kettle to make coffee I finally slipped out of bed, determining to have a peaceful, quiet morning with Gabriel. We had a rare day with nothing on the calendar. Time to stop running around and get over this cough.

Fast forward two hours. I'm shouldering large pieces of furniture up and down the stairs, hunting for stray washers, and sweating up a storm. Gabriel is following me around with tools in hand. How did this happen?

Friends had given us their son's old bunk bed over the summer. We painstakingly took it apart at their house and moved it piece by piece to our basement, unable to then muster the reserves needed to reassemble it in Gabriel's room. Months passed, and it never seemed like the right time to tackle the big black beast. When I asked Gabriel what he'd like to do together this morning, he suggested we put together his bunk bed. Between his spontaneity, bright enthusiasm, and sparkling eyes, I was persuaded. A surge of confidence moved through me, despite the daunting task before us. Yes. Yes we can.




About an hour later, surrounded by enormous pieces of black bed leaning precariously against the walls of his room, Gabriel cheerfully announced: I'm in jail, Mama! Mama, look at me, in jail! So am I, kid, I thought, my initial optimism about our abilities wearing dangerously thin. The deeper we got into this, the more my limitations made themselves known: my cold, my tenuous grasp of spatial relationships, my uncertainty around tools. But we had come too far to turn back, and my kid needed somewhere to take a nap. I began talking to myself like a crazy lady. I accepted all tools, light sabers, screws, sticks, and costume pieces that Gabriel tirelessly passed in my direction.

There were a couple of moments that teetered on the edge of despair, but we eventually managed to somehow get the frame together. I sighed with relief and stood back to take in my masterpiece. Then Gabriel flashed me a what-are-you-waiting-for look. Now go get the mattress, Mama!

Oh, right. I went down to the basement and almost cried when I saw it. If you've made it through your twenties, chances are you've experienced the agony that is moving a futon mattress up a flight of stairs. I'd never attempted it on my own before today. (I don't recommend it.) It was the final, most daunting hurdle of the morning and I did not go quietly into that torment. All the grunting and moaning completely freaked my formerly cheerful assistant out, who opted to find some toys in a corner and ignore the disturbingly expressive and sweaty woman on the stairs. Wise move.

During the entire upward slog (and not for the first time this morning) I kept thinking how one crazy choice led to another. How I knew this whole endeavor - to assemble a large piece of furniture with a three year old by my side - was wrong-headed from the start, but persisted nonetheless. How my back would break any moment now (I'm old enough to know it), but I had to keep dragging that monster to Gabriel's bedroom.

Why do I do these things? Could it be I am determined to control one thing, one measly bunk bed, just to show my control-defying life who's boss around here? It was a super human, super stupid feat of stubborn, unreasonable persistence. And I did it.

When it was time for stories before Gabriel's nap, he asked if we could read them in his new bed. This was something new; you can't snuggle up to read together in a crib-turned-toddler bed. Gabriel chose The Little Prince and a story from the library based on the movie Cars that I think was written and illustrated by a computer in China. He seems to enjoy both books equally. I try not to judge.

He asked me to read the first few chapters of The Little Prince again. He loves to hear how grown ups always mistake the author's drawing of a boa constrictor who has swallowed an elephant for a picture of a hat. That cracks Gabriel up. Those dopey grown ups!

We read for a long time. It was perfect. Stretched out next to my big boy in his big bed, I was suddenly exceedingly glad to have plunged blindly into ill-advised bunk bed assembly.

Frances was glad when she came home, too.

The unanticipated jungle gym aspects of the bed draw the kids to it like moths to a flame.