Silly Monkey Stories: Our Children May Be Tiny Hoarders

Last weekend, we decided that it was time for the children to clean their room.  With all the new items that came into the house over Christmas and their birthdays this month, this was long overdue.  Originally, we thought they just needed to clean things they left out and around their room.  Then our oldest child, Jake, discovered he had lost a prop he needed for a school project.  This led us to turn the room upside-down.  When they had no luck finding the missing item, I had a turn trying.  That was when I had the revelation that my sons might be hoarders in the making . . .

Here is a diagram of the items (I could recall seeing) that were in our boys' bunk beds.  There were many other little items, but I just cannot remember them all.  I honestly do not know how they have room to stretch out and sleep comfortably at night, but they seem to manage to.  Some odd things that stood out to me were the chemistry set, the 8 t-shirts, and the bookmark I found in the bed of a boy who never reads in bed.  My husbands says that he empties out their beds completely when he changes their sheets, but somehow everything ends up back in the beds eventually.

What is the oddest thing you've ever found in your child's bed?

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Before Purchasing Standard Bunk Beds, Consider the Options

As you may already know, we are a family of five stuck in a two-bedroom townhouse until the housing market turns around.  When the twins were born, we made up our minds that it would be best to have the three children sleep in the extra large master bedroom and my husband and I would take the small bedroom.  We already knew then that we would need to buy bunk beds when the twins were ready to move out of their toddler beds.  So when the time came, we went out and bought bunk beds.  We did not give it much thought.  We found ones that were the right wood tone, was sturdy, easy for our older son to climb up and down, and sold at a fair price.

Now looking back, perhaps we should have thought things through more carefully?  We would have saved much more space if we had purchased a twin over full bunk bed.  We also should have looked at futon bunks.  If the twins slept together in the full size bed or futon, we would have all the extra space now used by our daughter's twin size bed.  The twins are only 4-1/2 years old and could probably sleep horizontally on a full size mattress rather than vertically, giving them plenty of space to stretch out.  The futon style bunk bed would have added extra seating for watching television or reading during the daytime, which would have saved us even more space.

By the way, I started thinking about needing more space because the children have been at each other's throats the past week or so.  I think the heat is starting to get to them and they just need to not be together all the time.  It would be nice if one or two could go hang out in the bedroom comfortably while the other could have some quiet alone time in the living room or vice versa.