For the past nine months, Kato has been sleeping in a crib and Alden in a portable tent. Their room is really small (8’x8′), and there just wasn’t room for a crib, a dresser, a chair, and a bed. But for three consecutive days, Kato climbed out of the crib, landed on his head, got a goose egg, and made us feel like terrible parents. Yesterday, we decided to do something about it.

I disassembled the crib and put it in storage while Robbi drove to IKEA and introduced the kids to the concept of “bed.”

Apparently, they took to it quickly.

About four hours later, she returned. I helped her carry the various boxes in from the car. But something seemed amiss. Where were the mattresses? A grim realization crossed through Robbi’s mind and she made an expression too tortured to describe. Apparently, the cart had been too full, so she had decided to buy the bed frames, load them in the car, and then get the mattresses after eating a heaping plate of Swedish meatballs. Anyone who has ever eaten a heaping plate of IKEA Swedish meatballs will understand the soporific daze that follows and the near-impossibility of remembering to buy mattresses when thus encumbered.

In any case…

I put the children back in the car and drove to IKEA myself. We got the mattresses.

And then drove home. It was already bedtime by the time we got back to the barn, so we wasted no time.

While I assembled bed frames, Alden enjoyed a final stint in her tent.

Kato wanted to help.

And was especially interested in how the screwdriver worked.

He actually figured it out pretty quickly.

Once the first bed was assembled, we cleared out all the junk that had been strewn across the floor.

We moved the first bed in.

And then the second.

Great hilarity ensued, including an episode I’ll call “the stuffing of the duvet.”

Once introduced to his new bed, Kato was pleased.

Sleep ensued.

We crossed our fingers, hoping that there would be no bumps in the night.

And there were no bumps, just contented silence.

This morning, we opened the door to their room, not certain what we would find.

According to Alden, Kato had crawled in with her at some point in the night, and the two of them “snuggled to the morning.”

Sounds nice.