The Boyness Roller Coaster

Boyness has been asking me to help him rearrange his room for at least 6 months. He doesn't like his bed high up, he says. And he doesn't like his bed, period, it isn't comfortable.

So I decided almost completely on a whim that yesterday was *the day* that we were going to tackle the bed thing. I figured it would take a few hours and we could be happily done by the time we were supposed to be at the Y. Plus Fran was home, and I wasn't about to un-loft the bed without another adult to do the lifting.

Semi-predictably, we wound up completely disassembling the bed and moving the entire contents of his bedroom into our room and the hallway so that we could steam clean the carpets. We still made it to the Y, but with the project at 0% completion and the floors wet. Come evening, the floors were still damp and we were back to digging a hallway through our bedroom so that we could leave them to dry overnight.

Meanwhile I got to thinking that Boyness' fancy 100% cotton futon mattress did indeed look kinda funky and flat and uncomfortable. And that maybe 100% cotton plus allergy-boy wasn't a great combo. So today, instead of putting his room back together, we went mattress shopping. This turned out to be a far more onerous task than I predicted, largely because we can't exactly run to Costco and spend $450 on a twin mattress (Holy shit! These must be the same people that buy their BMW and Lexus at Costco!). We wound up at IKEA, where we purchased a rather fancy combo latex/memory foam mattress at 80% discount because the washable outer cover was dirty (it looked like someone had pulled it across the floor of the warehouse pickup area). Right now, the washable outer cover is slowly drying on low heat, but when I pulled it from the washer it looked brand-new-white. SWEET.

And yeah, it's 8:20 and his mattress isn't even back on his bed (at least the frame is reassembled) and his room is still in the hallway and in my bedroom. At least we didn't really have anything planned for tomorrow.

This was NOT supposed to be a three day project. Ugh.

Anyhow, back to why I titled this post "The Boyness Roller Coaster." We swung dramatically from "OMG I'm so happy I am picking out my mattress and you're letting me CHOOSE the one I want!" to "the girls get something why don't I get something" when we stopped at Goodwill (of all places!) and I got BittyPrincess a pair of shoes for $2 and Girliness a *OMG THE EXPENDITURE* wicker basket. WTF?

Sweetness and sunshine on the ride home. OK, well, mostly sleeping on the ride home. And then a HUGE FUCKING BREAKDOWN because his sister wanted more yogurt than he put in her bowl and he was scared we were going to run out. Such a huge breakdown that it only ended when I threw him bodily out the front door and told him that if he was going to threaten the people that I love and live with in my house, he couldn't be in my house anymore.

Tears and reconciliation.

Folding laundry in the living room right now.

OMG PLEASE tell me I'm putting in my parenting duty with this child now and the teenage years will be a breeze. Please. Lie to me, even.