Top Sheets

Things that went right today:

1) Cleaned my bedroom thoroughly. Peaceful retreat achieved.

2) 19 year old son turns in his mission paperwork tonight.

3) 17 year old cooking dinner tonight.

We have had at least one set of bunk beds in our home for the past 13 years. In all of this time I have found changing the sheets on the top bunk annoying to say the least. Let me tell you how it is done. To begin with, unless you are Kareem Abdul Jabbar, you cannot make up the upper bed with your feet on the ground. You have to climb up there. Now these beds are intended for small children to use typically so they are built with that in mind. The stair rails are not meant to accommodate full sized feet and the bars are just slightly too close together for comfort. So it is a bit of an acrobatics act to haul yourself to the top. Especially while carrying a full load of bedding, so it is best to toss them up there in advance if you think of it (this does however make the next steps harder if you have a huge pile of linens in your way, but it is that or climb up and down several times. Take your pick). Once up there though you again feel oversized. No way to easily maneuver with the ceiling directly above you forcing you into a kneeling and crouched position. Invariably you will hit your head at some point. It's a given. Now the bottom sheet is the easiest. I have learned to start at the top left corner. Scrunch the sheet up in front of you so you are not kneeling on it and find the corner. Then shove your hand as far down the inside of the upper bed frame as you can with sheet in hand. You won't be able to see what you are doing because they build these beds high on the top so the child does not fall out. This design works beautifully for all but sheet changing. But persevere and paw around some and you can match the corner of the bed to the sheet corner and then pull it until it catches. If you can hook it over the edge than you are golden! Because it is gathered, it will kindly hold itself in place while you move around to the upper right corner. (Be careful to make sure it is fully hooked on though or it will spring back at you as soon as your turn your back on it.) The next corner should easily install unless you accidentally started with the wrong corner to begin with and the sheet is going the wrong direction. In this case you must reorient yourself and repeat step one. But assuming you have successfully put the first two corners on, then you have to manage to turn your body around and get the sheet shifted back under you (don't forget how close the ceiling is now) and then shimmy it over to the other side to put it over the other two corners. Phew. Now it is time for the top sheet. Pretty easy to spread it out but tucking it in is always a problem. In order to do so you must lift the corner of the mattress out from the extra deep frame. Not a problem in theory except for the fact that you are sitting up there. The full weight of your body is working against what you are trying to do. Bear in mind you are also trying NOT to fall off of the bed. Or to hit your head (again). Once the top sheet is on it is time for the blanket. Same story here but with a thicker heavier fabric. Sometimes I try to be quicker and do them both at once but it never really works out very well. They seem to shift around up there while you are working, refusing to stay where you need them to be. The comforter goes on last. By this time you are sweaty and exhausted and your back hurts but throw the sucker on there haphazardly anyway. Then risk your life climbing back DOWN from the blasted thing and then do a little scoot dance along the side of the bed trying to keep balance on the bottom rail on your tip toes while straightening the wrinkles out of the comforter. DONE. Then go see your chiropractor.

I have repeated this crazy process countless times over the years...feeling frustrated and irritable every single time. More so the older and less limber I become. I usually end up with at least one bruise. Today though, a light went on in my head. I finally asked myself, "is there a better way?" Not sure why it never occurred to me to think about alternatives before. Maybe because that way just the way you made a bed right? It was how my Mom did it. How her Mom did it. How I had always done it. Another way? Impossible right? But you know what? In about 15 seconds of pondering an important truth was staring me in the face. That this was a kid's room. The owner of this bed was 8 year old boy who could care less how it looked. From the ground you could NOT see if the bed was wrinkle free or not. I had been working hard to smooth out the comforter for all of these years...and for what? The benefit of the ceiling? Or the stuffed bear that lives up there? Even my son never really saw the smooth surface because once he climbed up he had to crawl across the bed to get to his pillow. By the time he noticed it was wrinkled again. sigh. I spent another 15 seconds feeling sorry for myself for all of the time I had wasted over the years and then decided to let it go and move on. But that first realization was very liberating. I felt free now to ask myself how else I could streamline the process. The bottom sheet was mandatory to protect the mattress. So no options there. But what about the blanket and top sheet? Did you really need them after all? Truth is that usually when I stripped the bed on laundry day the sheet and blanket were shoved down at the very bottom of the bed anyway. He had not really even been using them, because it got too hot up there with all of that over him. So for all intents and purposes the comforter was all he had been using. So I had a crazy thought. How about not putting them on at all? How about just putting on the bottom sheet and the comforter? And how about just laying the comforter out up there rather than worrying over tucking it in all the way around? Scandalous I know. What kind of a mom would not use a full set of sheets for their beloved child right? Um...it took about another 15 seconds to decide this was not the measure of a good mother. In fact it made good solid sense. Just wash the comforter more often and it's all good. The bed now took less than half the time to make. No injuries and a happy mommy at the end of it. And that night my son slept as peacefully as ever. The sky did not fall even. In 45 seconds I solved a problem that had been plaguing me for over a decade. Such a simple solution really but somehow I overlooked it for ages. Why I wonder? Now I am examining everything with a new resolve to find simple solutions to complex problems. What other irritants in my life can be easily fixed? Where can a little creativity go a long way?

- The sock matching issue that is the constant battle in a large family. (where do those socks go anyway?) Rather than try to match them all, get a big basket and toss them all in. Let the kids dig for matches when they need them.

- Never can find the case to match the DVD up with? Get a binder with CD dividers and put them in there. No more searching for cases.

- Baby taking off diaper? Duct tape!

You get the idea right? This is not rocket science and most solutions seem so obvious once you think of them. Just takes stepping back from a situation and looking at it with an open mind. Not putting limits on your ideas based on tradition or worries over what others might think. Today I am grateful that I no longer feel bound by top sheets. What can I tackle next?