a crib for baby

when a new baby is about to join a family, a flurry of activity to get ready for the little one’s arrival usually precedes the big event.  a nursery to be decorated and made sweet for baby.  a baby shower.  a carseat to be installed.  a name to be decided on.  and all the many stuffs to gather– lots of baby clothes, lots of baby gear, lots of baby dipes n wipes.  it all makes for good times.

except it’s not exactly like that when you’re baby number 4.

when you’re baby number 4, your parents view the hospital stay as more of a “mini-vacation” than anything else.

when you’re baby number 4, you get to sleep in a hand-me-down pack n play stuffed into a corner of your parents’ room.  if you’re lucky, they’ll blow the dust off the basinet insert first before letting you sleep in that.  that is, if they can find the basinet insert.

when you’re baby number 4, you get to wear the same onesie for two, sometimes three, okay four days in a row.  and the rest of your clothes are shoved into a laundry basket next to the pack-n-play where you sleep.

when you’re baby number 4, you finally get a plastic bin to hold all your clothes when you’re four months old.  still shoved next to the pack-n-play where you sleep.

when you’re baby number 4, you get to stay a whole nine months in that pack-n-play in your parents’ room before they finally get around buying you a proper crib to sleep in (because the crib your three older siblings slept in didn’t survive its fifth move).

and because your parents waited til you were nine months old before buying you a crib, you don’t look like such a teeny tiny peanut lost in a great big bed.  and you immediately sit up too, because you are nine months old, after all.  and you are ever so grateful to your big brother for offering you his beloved baby bear to help ease you in to your new bed.

so you do your best to look impossibly adorable as you try to figure out what you’re supposed to do in here.

also, you aren’t quite sure why your parents feel the need to place you behind bars all of a sudden.

then you look over and realize you finally made it into the party room.

with party animal number 1.

party animal number 2.

and party animal number 3.  along with the OG party animal thrown in there for fun.

then you gaze adoringly up at your big brother and telecommunicate to him that if you will be sentenced to sleep behind bars, then you’d like him to lift you out of bed and take you downstairs every morning so that the two of you can have brother bonding time.  because you two have a secret pact to be the early risers in the party room.

it’s a long message so it takes a while to transmit the whole thing. 

luckily it got through loud and clear before your parents realized that you are also able to pull yourself up in your brand new crib because they waited til you were almost not a baby before they finally got you a baby bed.

baby number 4 makes for lots of good times too, just on a completely different timeline.

and that’s alright, right?

ps- yes, all four are currently sleeping in one room.  and no, i don’t recommend it.  :p