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When we lived with the in-laws for several months I got into the habit of making my bed first thing upon waking up each day. In fact, the habit has taken hold so strongly that I usually make the bed before I leave the room each morning. Sick, isn’t it?

The older boys are pretty good at smoothing their blankets out in their loft beds. Okay total disclosure: I rarely remember to have them make their beds, and they love pillows and blankets so much that the beds are quite the hodgepodge of fluffy goodness and I don’t care. (I’ll probably get in trouble with a daughter-in-law someday over that one.) The lofts are high enough up that it’s difficult to see whether they’re made or not, which is another reason why I often don’t bother with it.

I have made a bit more effort with the younger boys, and I often make their beds or have them pull the blankets straight. They’re in a bunk bed, but it’s set super low so I can reach everything easily when I do it myself. The Manager is very fond of his bedmaking prowess. I’ll have to take a picture of it, as he’s very creative. I love when he arranges things in his own special way.

Captain Earthquake has the lower bunk, which is the easiest to deal with. Except for the bang my head part when I climb in to tuck the wall side.

Bet you’re wondering what the trick is? Took me long enough to get here, didn’t it? As part of taming the Captain’s night-time blanket wrangling, I used some elastic and suspender clips to affix his sheet and quilt to the wall side of the bed. It took some quick stitching with the sewing machine, but I bought basic suspender clips and attached them to the ends of a foot-long piece of elastic. I clipped one clip to the sheet and quilt, then ran the strap down under the bedframe and back up to clip the other end on the bedding.

The point at the time was to help keep the bedding in place as he was waking up EVERY night wanting me to fix his blankets. The sleeping problem has been solved, and the clipped blankets are super easy to pull neatly into place. A few tugs and the bed looks very smooth. The Captain can do a mighty fine bed-making job when he’s in the mood.

The older boys want their beds lowered down, and that’s on my list of things to do next month. I will have room to do that when the basement is finished and we move some furniture around. I’m planning to clip their bedding at that time too. If nothing else, all that fluffy goodness will stay somewhat in place.

by AmyL

[tags]kids, children, parents, parenting, bed making, sheets, boys, girls, lessons, learned, teaching, home[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by piXotropic, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved