Last night was horrible. Horrible. It’s been an adjustment ever since we added the fourth installment to our family and our bed, one that feels the need to scratch himself, shake himself off, and lick his crotch in the middle of the night, and follow us to the bathroom every time we get up to pee, but that adjustment has been easy in comparison to the other events that have transpired over the last week.

Which reminds me, did I ever mention we got a dog? We did.

Anyway, last week Deven’s crib broke. Something happened and a bolt was ripped from a wood panel and the bed spring was bent, and that was $360 we are not going to be able to reuse. I thought we would use the portable crib until we could get another crib, but that would mean dropping another $300-400 we don’t have into something we may not be using for a very long time anyway. Seriously, you blow that much money on something you’re going to be using for at least a couple of years when you’re within our income bracket. So I remembered that someone donated a bed to the Deven cause and that it was sitting in our garage, ready to go, no assembly required, just needed to be carried up the stairs.It was worth a try, right?

Neither of us thought it would work. This is a kid that won’t sit in one spot for more than a nano-second, that wouldn’t listen to his parents if his life depended on it, how were we going to get him to stay in a bed? This bed that he can get in and out of, this bed that is in a room full of toys and books neatly placed on shelves, toys and books that have yet to be ripped into shreds. We were counting on the four of us to be in our bed tonight.

That day because there was no crib, there was no nap, and no mercy for mama during the evening before dinner time. We got him into his bath, and I laid him in the bed tucked him under his blanket, read him a few stories, said goodnight, turned off the lights and left the room. The exact same routine we go through when he sleeps in a crib. I was expecting to be chasing him all over the house before just giving up and going to bed with him in our room, but after I left the room I didn’t hear a peep from him. He didn’t even get up to check out the free space in the room, he just went right to sleep.

My son sleeps in a big boy bed now. I can’t even say my baby sleeps in a bed now, because just the fact that he sleeps in a bed makes him a big boy. I no longer have a baby in my house. I have a big boy. But I have a dog now, so it’s okay.

It hasn’t been that easy every night. The last two nights he’s figured the run-out-of-the-room game, and we’ve figured out after 2 or 3 rounds, putting him into bed and then holding the door shut is pretty effective. It sounds cruel, but he gets the message.

The worst part of this, however, is  that he now just gets right up and leaves the room when he wakes up. When he would sleep in his crib he would wake up and talk to himself and fall back asleep a couple of times leaving me to sleep in until 10 am sometimes. Those days are gone and done with. I have to adjust my own sleep schedule now because he is up and ready to go before daddy leaves for work.

Last night Deven went to bed with a runny nose which I thought was just allergies, but I realized he was actually sick when he woke up at like 3 am screaming and crying and choking, something he never does unless he is sick. And can’t breath. So I had to go in there and lay with him until he went back to sleep. I laid in there for probably close to 2 hours with him. He would fall asleep and I would attempt to get up and he would wake up, so I had to wait until he was asleep enough to not be disturbed by the massive shift in weight when I tumbled my ass out of his teeny bed. He still woke up at 8:30, and that means I didn’t even get enough sleep to safely descend the stairs, let alone go about my day.

Deven is growing up so fast. I just described one huge milestone, I didn’t even get into all the talking and understanding and remembering he has been doing lately. That’s mostly because I can’t even remember all of the new things he is learning every day. Seriously, it’s incredible.

Coming soon: potty training.