His Ship and Sailing the Seven Seas

Patrick, our champion sleeper, has begun to resist naps and bedtime. He knows that Sadie is still up and being in his crib wasn't all that much fun.  Then a gift for his birthday arrived from our family and Paul rented a truck to pick it up from the store (because none of us realized how huge it was going to be so I'd told them just to ship it to the closest location and then got a call from Paul saying "the box is like six feet long and won't fit in our mini van...") and it arrived last night.  Of course I immediately began snapping pictures because apparently I can't stop instagraming photos these days:

Paul opened the box outside since it wouldn't fit through our front door and then began the process of carrying everything up to Patch's room and assembling it.  It took a while, during which time Patch watched Paul from his crib while shouting down the hall into our bedroom "James!  Wake up!" because apparently his brother needed to join in on the fun.

Finally I took all the kids back downstairs before the finished project really started coming together, which meant at bedtime Patch, who had been muttering about "ships" downstairs, got to come up and do his bedtime routine before going into his room and seeing this:

The sheets are actually part of the present Paul and I got him for his birthday, when I found out he would be getting this bed... so he got two of his presents a little over a week early.

And did he love it?

I think the answer was a resounding yes.  Here's a little video I took of him after bringing him up for bedtime:

And a few more pictures because... I just can't keep the cuteness to myself!

And bedtime was made easy after he got into his bed.  He turned off the light and closed the door.  I went downstairs and waited for Paul and Sadie to get back from karate... and then I heard a blood curdling scream.  I rushed upstairs, threw open the door, worried about what kind of trouble he might have gotten into outside of a crib, and found... that he had managed to unscrew the giant plastic screw keeping the wheel in place and was hysterical over it.  I managed to get it back on and tighten it and a disaster was averted.    He went happily back to sailing the seven seas.

About half an hour later I peeked in and found him laying on the yellow plastic part of the bed below the wheel, smiling sleepily and another hour later I found him sound asleep with his head down on the mattress below the wheel, and covered him up with quilts so that he would get cold during his adventures.

I have to say, even as a grown up, my bed seems much less neat right now!