1 Mother 2 Another

As many of you know, over the past several
months we’ve been moving Cora from a crib to a big-girl bed.
We went from a toddler mattress on the floor beside the crib to a
full-sized mattress on the floor, and as the final step put
together her bed frame and raised the mattress up off the floor
this weekend.


I’m a big fan of Craig’s List and never know when what
I want will come up, so I started looking for a bed frame for her
about eight months ago. I discovered a lovely old full frame in our
price range last spring, and it’s been sitting in the garage
ever since, waiting for Cora to be old enough to climb into it.


Judging by what we’ve seen since we put the bed together,
it’s going be a really long time before Cora’s old
enough to climb into it.

As I said, the bed frame is very old
– I’m thinking early 20’s. And it’s sized
for a modern mattress, but is much higher off the ground than most
beds today. So once we got her box spring and mattress on there
Cora’s pillows looked miles away from the ground. I mean,
this thing is REALLY high. Higher than the four poster I grew up
in. When Cora stands next to the bed, the top of the mattress is
higher than her head.


It’s high.


We assembled the bed while the girls were out of the house, and
when they both saw it they gasped – the set looked like a
fairy tale. So Cora loves the idea of the bed, but even with a
step-stool she can’t get up on it by herself. I’m
teaching her to put one foot wedged in between the mattress and box
spring as a second step, but it’s slow going, and that little
body grunts and pulls and struggles mightily to mount her throne.


And yes, indeed, she looks like royalty way up high there –
all she needs is that pea and she’s the princess from the
fable atop twenty fluffy mattresses. But is it, um, safe?


I have visions of Cora falling off the bed in the middle of the
night and snapping her neck on her step stool, so every evening I
tuck the stool back under the bed so she’ll fall straight
down. Which means, of course, that she’s trapped on that bed.
I’m not saying I’ve got all the answers here.


We’ve talked about cutting some boards to make slats on the
frame so we can use just the mattress and lose the box spring, but
I’m afraid our princess is getting pretty used to her lofty
perch and every time I’ve mentioned lowering it she answers
with an emphatic “No, Mamma! Don’t break Cora’s
bed!”


So for now it’s just something we’ll all have to get
used to. And hope Cora doesn’t get too many nose bleeds.