Bed Wars - (And Forgive Me, I Have No Idea What Number This Is)

Little Man is a couple months away from his fifth birthday, and it is time to really, really, take away the crutch that is his crib.  We tried once before to take away the crib, but it just resulted in a few nights of terrified wakeups by Little Man when he discovered he was in his room but not in his crib.  Screams of terror at 3 AM for a week = parents relenting and putting the crib back in the room.

To recap the last few months of Bed-Wars... We attempted to make it harder for LM to get out of the crib by removing the springs that held up the mattress, and placing the mattress directly on the floor with the crib around it.  That didn't help at all.  A few months ago he perfected his tuck and roll technique and now can escape the crib in less than 30 seconds.  A shove on the baby gate and he was downstairs in the morning waiting to greet me with a smile on his face and destruction all over the living room.

So finally we resorted to what I really hadn't wanted to try - locking the door.  And when he figured out that he could use his teeth to unlock the door, we flipped the doorknob around and now it locks from the outside.  Which is actually safer anyways, so I'm not too upset about that, its just the whole "Little Man can unlock doors with his teeth" thing that makes me nervous.  His therapist was actually pleased to find out that Little Man is such a "problem solver", as it is a very nice developmental milestone.  But back to the bed...

As of Monday night, Little Man officially transitioned with relative ease into his "big boy bed".

Thomas Themed sheets for maximum awesomeness.

The bed looks cute and everything, and the white pads cover up the worst of the teeth marks on the sides as an added bonus.  But practical?  Not even close.  The only thing this bed is good for is a good starting spot for laying Little Man's head at night.  It is not going to prevent wandering in the morning, it isn't going to prevent him from getting up during the night and playing with the blinds and his latest obsession - the closet door.  [We're actually getting a lock for that door too, because all the safety knobs in the world haven't been able to prevent him from opening his closet.]

His case worker is now giving us doom-and-gloom speeches about how slowly government assistance works, and trying to convince me that I need to look into other alternatives to the Monroe bed that we have been working towards for almost a year.  I got a call from her after her latest visit this Tuesday for a follow-up regarding the bed, and had I not been playing Candy Crush to relax after a long day of therapies and home visits, she would have seen me fly into a blind rage.

What set me off was when she recommended that I look into the Nickel Bed, which I have known about since July of 2012 when we started this whole process.  Apparently while looking around the internet after our home visit a few hours prior she found out about the Nickel and was trying to sell me on how great the bed would work for Little Man.  So when I said I was willing to try the Nickel [which during my research back then I had realized would probably be too weak for Little Man's teething and ripping issue], I asked how long it would take the state to approve funds for this less expensive option vs. the $2k+ Monroe bed.

"Oh but THIS bed is ONLY $159, plus shipping.  So you can just get that one."

I'm sorry but what?  Maybe I'm overreacting here, but since when is $159 just spare change that a family of a special needs child with a baby on the way has lying around??  I know that you are doing a home visit, and things look nice and clean and my husband has a job while I stay home.  But how do you have the nerve to act like I can just drop that kind of money on a bed that I'm not even convinced will be a viable solution?  You don't think if I had thought we could afford to experiment with a "cheap" bed tent that we would have done that ten months ago???

While I know that she is trying to be helpful, I can't help but be angry.  I want to shake her and show her how hard we work every day to keep Little Man safe and happy, how much we actually have to spend to accommodate his needs that we can't get through any kind of insurance or assistance.  This was the one thing we knew we needed help with, the one thing we'd asked for help for - and to be just blithely told that we should buy the bed ourselves and move forward is so frustrating.  I wouldn't have jumped through the ridiculous hoops to get into this program if it wasn't for this damn bed, and now it feels like it has all been for nothing.  

Instead of flipping out and screaming in frustration at my cell phone, I calmly said we would not be purchasing a Nickel bed and we would continue to wait for the Monroe that may never come.  She seemed slightly taken aback by my not immediately jumping for joy at her plan, but then backtracked into discussing other things.

To be fair, it wasn't really just her assuming that we have money to throw around that had me angry.  Ex and I had a very intense talk last weekend about the same thing, and so it was already a sore spot for me when this came up.  In the time it has taken me to edit and post this, re-reading my frustration with her really is like reading a list about my frustrations lately with the Ex.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still annoyed with her.  But after some distance from the phone call and a good nights sleep, I am simply annoyed and not "raging" (as my Facebook status had indicated immediately after the call.)

So that is the latest bed update.  I'm getting up the energy to write about our latest couple of appointments, which were basically hell on Earth.  For now though, I'm off to watch the ten-thousandth episode of "Super Why", the latest household obsession.  Also a kind of hell on Earth.  :)