I fought the bed (and the bed won)

I've been in the market for a wonderful thing called a "co-sleeper". As you may, or may not know, bonding is a big deal when it comes to adoption. In short, you've missed out on some very formative months in your child's life and children in orphanages are forced to be very independent little creatures due to the lack of one on one care. Therefore, it is important to create bonds with your child upon getting them home no matter what their biological age. Even if they can feed themselves (which many do even at a very young age) the parent holds the bottle and sits with the child to eat. Another biggie is sleeping. 1-Orphans are accustomed to sharing sleeping quarters with a lot of other people. 2-Co-sleeping a great way to "make up for lost time"- It's a intimate way to live as a family, at least until the child gets comfortable with their new surroundings. Anyway- the Co-Sleeper is this cool invention that is basically an extension to your bed- it attaches to the side and remains open to the parent without the risk of "rolling over" onto a baby actually in your bed. So, today the big neighborhood next to ours had a community wide yard sale and I hit the mother load! A like-new co-sleeper- still in the original box and carrying case! And in a neutral, non-gender specific color! The best part, the tags were still in the box a $200 item for a $30 steal!!! So I couldn't wait to but it together and share the pictures with you......yeah, it didn't go so well. Here is the tiny box it came in.

I read the instructions carefully and began locking collapsible arms and "pressing here" and pulling there to get something that came in a 3 foot bag into a 5 foot item. As you can see, I had some lovely furry assistants who are very curious about all this stuff that is making its way into our house lately.

As soon as I got to the part with the fold out mattress Alex thought "Oh boy a new dog bed!!!" These poor pooches have no idea what's coming their way and what adventure they are in for.....

The bed also converts into a "Pack-N-Play" and a diaper changing table. Pretty cool huh? Here it is as the Pack-N-Play. So I get it, for the most part, up and together. Then I thought I would take it to our bed and see how it looked. Yeah- It wouldn't fit through the door frame. (*Note to self- when assembling this item for real Baby Deetz and not "blog photo op" ASSEMBLE IN THE BEDROOM!) So I took it all apart, determined to show you how neat this is going to be! I got it all apart, drug it into our room, and began to reassemble. I was covered in sweat and dog hair from rolling around on the ground. I was about to go crazy trying to get this thing back together! Needless to say, I gave up. Obviously you need two sets of hands to attach this sucker to the bed. (And a master's degree in baby product assembly). AND I would have to make the bed before posting pictures on the blog. I decided to call it a day and try to pull a completed picture off the web instead of struggling anymore AND making the bed. I didn't think though.....I had to disassemble to get it OUT of the room! Ughh.....Then, I spent another 30 minutes trying to get this thing back into the tiny box. This is what I was left with......At least I got the bumpers and mattress back into the bag...

We called it a day, drug the thing into the Baby's closet (to remain hidden until it is needed months down the road) and we all took a nap.......

This baby product stuff is a killer. If I was more mathematically and assembly minded, here is what you would have seen......However, these people are not covered in sweat or dog hair, I don't even think they are real people- they look like wax dummies. And they look WAY too happy to be awake in the middle of the night with a screaming baby. I bet they didn't even put their Co-Sleeper together!