My 3 year old still sleeps in his crib.

Don’t judge me.

It’s mostly a matter of oversight.  Changing his bed just hasn’t ranked high on our priority list of “Fun Things to Do This Summer”. We moved Lila directly to a twin bed at 18 months because we had to. We needed the crib for him! But there’s no new baby gunning for Matthew’s spot at the moment, so for now, the space is all his. He still fits comfortably in it and he’s never attempted to climb out of it. He’s not bothered by it at all and until recently, we weren’t either.

The only thing that’s driving my sudden urge to transition is knowing that the crib is whats impeding his 100% completion of potty training. He’s been 99% potty trained for many months now and only wears training pants at night. When I’m the one to wake him up in the morning, he’s usually dry. It’s when I go to retrieve him after he’s been awake for a few moments that I find him and his crib a soaking wet mess. I’m confident he”ll have no problem clearing this last hurdle once he can get in and out of a bed in order to go to the bathroom on his own. And so every Saturday morning, I shuffle to his room and I say to myself, “We are taking this crib down today“.

Then Lila’s voice pipes up and I realize her “babysitting services” have already begun. She’s the first one up on the weekends, and just as soon as she hears her brother stirring, she”ll enter his room and tell him to hush because “Mommy and Daddy are sleeping” . She pokes animal crackers and boxed raisins through the slats for his morning snack, gets a stack of his favorite books from his bookcase and then pulls up a chair and “reads” to him. Other times I’ve approached to hear them singing nursery rhymes or reciting together their numbers and colors in Spanish. When I finally enter the room, she will announce to me that she “took care of Matthew already’ and that he is all set.  And Matthew will hand me his empty snack pack and say “Mommy, Lila made me breakfast”.

In 10 minutes there will be chaos and turmoil over who had which toy first, over whose bowl has more cereal, over whose turn it is to choose whether we first watch Bubble Guppies or Little Einsteins. There will be tantrums, tattling, and continuous declarations that they are no longer the other’s best friend. But in this moment, they are thrilled that the first thing they see upon waking is the other’s face, and they shower one another in affection and attention. In this moment, there is love. And I say to myself, “We can take the crib down tomorrow“.