Day 1: make a bed

Day 1 of A Project A Day, and I made a bed. At this stage, folks, let's establish two things:

1. I may be lame on the motivation front, but pulling up some sheets with a hospital crease does not a project make.
2. I don't mind a nicely made bed, but it's not actually one of my high priorities in the house cleaning schedule. So don't expect that sheets and hospital creases will be on my APrADay List.

My making a bed was the real deal- from flat-packed bits to the finished product, ta-da!

Big Bro had been happily sleeping in his side-less cot for ages, at least for the first part of the night. He claims that it's lonely in the dark, and has perfected the art of sneaking into a vacant patch of our bed without waking us... until sometime later we receive a heel in the eye socket from our slumbering firstborn. With a two-and-a-half year record of fighting Big Bro on the sleep front, B and I have both run out of energy for that battle. So do we think the comfy new bed (king-single, no less) with its spiffy Target linen will solve Big Bro's desire for midnight company? Not at all. The idea is that it can be a refuge for whichever parent cops the most heels to the eyesocket in one night... Lame, I know, but like I said, we're battle-weary.

This whole evolution to co-sleeping is quite bizarre for me. As a good disciple of Robin Barker's Baby Love, four years ago I was quite certain that I didn't want a co-sleeping baby. Bed-sharing was restricted to moments of extreme illness or desperation, and there was no reason to change, given that Big Bro wasn't the sort of kid to snuggle down for a cuddle and a snooze. I'm sure I had the occasional secret- and superior- snigger at people who shared beds with their kids. Something changed for all of us in the last year, and all of a sudden we have a co-sleeper. One thing parenting teaches has taught me is to never judge other parents (well, I try...), because I'll be doing whatever they're doing the next week...

The whole co-sleeping thing is a one of those middle-class dilemmas, though. I finally got around to reading the completely depressing Angela's Ashes a few months ago, and the fact of four boys sharing a bed was certainly not a novelty for Ireland of 70 years ago. Even a former colleague, now in her mid-40s, had told us that in her childhood in Scotland, she shared a bed with her sister until she was 16. So what's the big deal now?

Anyway, back to the bed upgrade, seeing the old cot empty was a little bittersweet.

Sure, it's great to see Big Bro growing up, but it's yet another step away from my little bundle at the end of the cot...

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Pen and I were keen to think up sone fundraising aspect to our Project a Day Projects. Here's my version: I'll donate $1 for every comment posted in December, towards a charitable gift along the lines of Oxfam Unwrapped or World Vision's Smiles Catalogue's Donate-a-Goat.

Sticking with the theme of today's post, a $30 donation to World Vision would buy a blanket for someone affected by a natural disaster, illness, or just ("just") cold nights.