to sleep, perchance to dream

Having complained every night since we had River that our mattress is a complete piece of %&!# and desperately needs replacing, Thom finally decided he was tired of hearing my whining. Either that or he was afraid I would resort to sleeping in someone else's bed, because yesterday he broke down and ordered a new mattress.

This is a wonderful thing.

When you find yourself sleeping with an infant it is no longer acceptable to have a bed that sinks right into the middle (a nice feature that encourages snuggling when there's just two of you), or which translates every twitch and wiggle into a wave of vibration, or which squeaks and groans with the slightest shifting of position. None of these features of our ancient bed encourages sleep in a touchy infant or his sleep-deprived parents.

So I was overjoyed when the nice delivery men showed up at my door today bearing what is to me more valuable than diamonds or gold: our beautiful new bed.

I was less than overjoyed when they told me they could not fit the accompanying box spring up our tight stairway and would have to send out a split box later in the day. It was fine that our full delivery would be somewhat delayed; what concerned me was the removal of our current box spring--which I soon recalled required being pulled over the rail of our third story balcony by three burly movers when we first moved in.

I left the problem to my husband when he returned from work. With rope in hand and his brother trailing behind, I watched them mount the stairs to solve the box spring dilemma.

Five minutes later I heard a loud bang and a laugh from my sister-in-law down below.

Box springs, it seems, can indeed fly. Just not for very long.