We finally made the move to "big beds".
At the beach last month I had the twins in beds with guard rails and they loved it. They loved it so much that they didn't want to come home unless they could bring them along. I guess that is the bonus of waiting until well after three to make the transition. All of the advice I got was to keep them in cribs for as long as possible, just to make life easier. And we did.

We picked the beds up on Monday afternoon, from a friend who is seven months pregnant. They were hand made by her husband's father, and are sturdy and perfect for children. She asked if we were having any more babies, and we both shook our heads no. It is a question we get fairly often, but for now the decision is to make the next addition canine.

She complained about how big she was, but to me she looked beautiful. I loved being pregnant. For all of the nausea, bloating, heartburn, forgetfulness and general discomfort, I really enjoyed it, and perhaps that was with the knowledge that there probably would not be another experience like it.

Sweating, banking on the strength I'd built up keeping up with the kids, we moved the solid wood beds downstairs and out to the truck and then moved them again inside our own house. A total rearrangement of the room had to be rapidly accomplished, and the cribs dismantled and put into temporary storage. I ran rags over the dusty floors where furniture has been since before they were born. A hand made table with a fish pond painted on it didn't make the cut and was removed. But the hardest part was when we actually took the bedding out of the cribs, took the screws out of the sides, and brought the assembly downstairs.

Grandma brought the kids over just as we finished setting their stuffed animals on their beds and arranging the pillows. My daughter actually screamed with delight, and my son jumped onto his bed and rolled around like a puppy. They were thrilled.

After storytime, I looked at my husband, and he had a faraway gloom about him. He told me that just that morning he had held a 10 month old baby, and now our kids were in big beds, learning to use the potty and telling us about their imaginary friend, a tiny man they call their "sweetie".

And as I cleaned up the dishes, after the excitement of the first hour calmed and the kids fell finally to sleep, I wondered about that sadness, almost grief, of seeing them get older, and of it seeming to go so quickly. Is it the loss of having that to look forward to? Is it our own mortality setting in to stare us down for the last half of the game? Or it is just that holding a new baby, one that you will know from that point on, is possibly the greatest feeling a person can experience, and despite the work that comes with it, we still gleefully, almost blindly repeat it again and again.