THE TODDLER BED

Dear genius who invented the “convertible crib to toddler bed” concept:

You are a giant ass. Seriously. I am sure that you thought that the sun shined out of your ass when you came up with this idea. “Why charge parents $100 for a crib when we could charge them $500 for a crib with one replaceable side? All we have to do is tell them that the bed will “grow with the child” and they’ll buy them by the dozen,” I’m sure you explained to your colleagues. And damn you, you were right. I did spend the extra $400 and am now stuck with the pain and misery of that bad decision.

“Why is the bed such a problem,” you might ask yourself (that is, if you can stop counting your millions for long enough). Well, let me tell you.

This idea that the toddler bed is a happy medium between the crib and regular bed only exists in the parents’ mind. In the kid’s mind things are pretty black and white. One side is the fully enclosed crib jail and the other side is everything else. The stupid idea of the toddler bed medium only acts to give us parents the idea that we maintain some modicum of control over the situation, when in reality we have completely lost the battle.

Let me tell you what a child can do in a bed that is enclosed on three and a half sides: whatever she wants. She can jump on the bed. She can stand up in the bed. She can get in and out and in and out and in and out of the bed. She can get out of her bed and go and bang on the bedroom door. She can slowly but surely slide out of the open side and down onto the very thin carpet where her poor mother is lying while pretending to sleep. In other words, she can do everything she could do in a regular bed and MORE thanks to the handy side rails.

The only person that is held in place by the damn sides is the infuriated mother who is lying cramped up against them while begging her child to sleep. That extra-short length gives me just enough space to *think* that I can somehow lie down comfortably if I just try hard enough.

I bought the convertible bed and now find myself with my nose and mouth pressed up against the half-side of crib rails like one of the poor, unadopted puppies at the pet store. Sometimes, I catch myself scratching the railing and mumbling “Free me…free me!”

And my legs…where do I put those? If I face in, I have to let everything below the knee dangle off the side of the bed. When I lose all feeling and am forced to roll over, I have to wedge my toes in between the crib slats so that I don’t fall out.

The final moment of insanity comes when I can finally get up. David Blaine could not extricate himself from a sleeping child’s convertible toddler bed without waking them up. Between the contorted body position and the partial paralyzation, I am going to make a shit ton of noise when I stand up. That is, if I can stand up again.

So thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming up with this great idea. I hope you made enough to pay my chiropractor bills.