The Dilemma.

Tonight the inevitable happened. 
The following pictures occurred after I videotaped the escape from their individual beds, in the midst of bumper removal…

















See why we’re in trouble?

I knew it was only a matter of time before the spider monkey children realized they could easily remove themselves from their cribs.  We put them to bed as usual, and then as we were downstairs picking up leftover dinner plates, we heard simultaneous toddler laughter and "Naattthaaan, Maaaannnndy!!!" from our 13-year-old cousin whose staying in the guest room.  According to Sydney, she walked out of her room and saw Caroline just standing in her doorway, cheesing and totally proud of herself.  For once, I didn't close the gate to their room, so it's a miracle that she actually just stood still.  By the time I got to the top of the stairs, Tyler had joined her.  They were giddy with excitement, and we knew it was gonna be a long night.

So, for the past hour and a half, the three of us have been trying to figure out how to make this work tonight.  Our first idea was to remove every single thing from their beds, except for their sheets and yaya/bebe blankets.  I sat in the floor, in the dark, and watched in horror as they flung themselves out of those bare-bones-beds the minute Nathan closed the door behind him.  Fail.  Our second idea was to wait until they started scaling then physically remove them and lay them back down, sternly telling them it was "night night time!"  After about 15 minutes I was irritated, so I left the room and hoped they'd find climbing out wasn't all that fun if mommy wasn't in the floor to watch.  (Did I mention they skipped naps today, too?  If you have small children then you know this means overtired + exhausted = bouncing off the walls.  A certifiable recipe for disaster.)  The minute I got downstairs, we heard the pitter patter of wild little feet once again.  Fail #2.  Totally defeated, we headed back up to their room and tried to come up with a plan to get us through the night.  In a clutch moment, Nathan came up with the solution...  Removing the entire crib bottom.  It's pretty funny to see their mattresses just lying on the floor with the shell of the cribs around them, but it has worked thus far. 

With all that said, I need opinions.  Should we buy crib tents?  I've heard a lot of great things about them, and truthfully, the thought of rocking the bedtime boat makes me cringe.  Or do we bite the bullet and convert over to toddler beds?