Eight Inches

This weekend, my man and I finally got around to a task that had been on my to-do list for some time: lowering the bed. When we purchased a new queen-size mattress just before our first son was born (our first ever brand new mattress!) it came with a metal frame on wheels. Although I felt a bit like a bird perched in a tree, the height did make it easier for me to get my pregnant self in and out of bed.

This wasn't the first time I had slept on stilts. A couple of years earlier, my dear father-in-law had presented me with a wooden bed frame, lovingly made with his own two hands. At that time, we hoisted up our very old, lumpy hand-me-down mattress that for so long had lived on the floor. That first night, as I lay on our newly elevated mattress, I cried. Somehow the humble mattress on the floor had come to represent something bigger to me... a nomadic spirit, a closeness to the earth, the simple life, a kind of freedom from the unnecessary trappings of modern middle-class existence. I was sad to let it all go.

After stubbing my toe innumerable times on the somewhat awkwardly designed bed frame (the flaw has since been corrected on pop's newer constructions), we dismantled it and have been using pieces of it as a security barrier at the top of our second floor staircase. Ever since our ten-month old mastered the art of rolling and crawling a couple of weeks ago, I've been anxious to reduce the distance between the top of our mattress and the hardwood floor below.

Some grunting, groaning and "expleting" later, our mattress and box spring are now firmly planted on the ground. It's still a little higher than is safe, so I've layered the area around the bed with rugs and blankets and cushions, just in case. But both my man and I are amazed by the difference this "drop" has made in terms of our comfort. The bed on the floor just feels right, in so many ways.

As the baby on a poster at our local health clinic says, "Mommy, I can't fall off the floor."