Walking the Plank

What are you lookin' at?

Hang on to your hats, we now have bunk beds.

With baby #3 on the way, we knew we would need more sleeping space, so we used the Easter full house as an opportunity to set up bunk beds in the boys' room. By the time Baby Girl is old enough to need Louie's crib, Max will be more than ready for a top bunk, but the novelty of the new furniture addition has already caused me some major headaches!

Take last week, for instance. I was folding laundry in the guest room upstairs while the boys were playing loudly in their bedroom. In general, loud equals safe in our household; if I can hear them, I know they're not getting into trouble. Apparently, this is no longer the case when the top bunk is in play! I found out later that the bunk beds had been transformed into a pirate ship- the top bunk was the deck and the bottom bunk was the hold.

On a whim, I peeked into the room to see what they were doing and, to my horror, witnessed Max standing inches from the edge of the top bunk, Lucian directly behind him. Max yelled, "I'm walking the plank!" as Lucian gave him a nice piratey shove on the back. As I promptly died of a heart attack, Max managed to fall backward onto the safety of the mattress.

Several strong words and new rules later, both kids were safely on the floor. We've now gone about a week without incident (I think I may have put some healthy fear into their hearts) but I know it's only a matter of time until the first major injury. I would appreciate any advice from bunk-bed-owning families about how to keep your children alive once this treacherous item of furniture has entered the picture! Is there anything I can do, or am I staring at the inevitability of a broken arm?

I think I'm going to put the ER on speed dial...

**As my husband reminded me in the comments, I did unintentionally leave out the crowning jewel of this story. How could I have forgotten to mention Max's response to being taken down from his ship? Those words... I must have put them out of my head. I didn't think I'd hear them for at least another eight years! When he realized his cavorting on the deck was finished, at least for the day, he turned to me and whined (in his very best teenager voice) "Ahh! You ruined my pirate life!!" **