That’s how long Josiah’s island in the sky lasted as an independent kingdom. Even the Republic of Texas lasted longer than that.

We had decided some time back to have the two cubs share a room when Andrew outgrew his crib. We already had a chest bed and another mattress that Josiah slept on the floor with. Gilbert had suggested getting a loft bed to put over the chest bed, but didn’t find one suitable. Also, because of the height of the chest bed, there wouldn’t be much headroom under the loft. After looking at a couple of furniture stores and the internet, Winnie spotted a reasonable all-wood bunk bed locally. The boys liked climbing on it almost as much as sliding down the carpeted stairs in the store.

We also had a difference of opinion of where to put the bunk bed. Gilbert had thought of locating the boys in the corner room with the crib, while Winnie thought of putting it where Josiah's floor mattress was in the other room. After some measurement, Winnie's idea prevailed, with the added bonus of not having the upper bunk in touching range of a potentially hot light fixture, and not being on a potentially cold outside wall. The possible drawback is that guests would then use the corner room and have to pass by the boys' room to get to the rest of the house.

When we got the bed delivered, we put Josiah's mattress on the lower bunk. Because we didn't want anyone trampling on the chest bed in the crib room, we left the upper bunk unused with the ladder on it for over a week until we were able to buy another mattress. Josiah said "I can't wait until I can sleep in the top bunk." When that great day arrived, he climbed up and Andrew immediately wanted to go up the "lah-lah". After some watching, we decided that it was safe for him to go up and down by himself. It is also a good place to entertain guests. But when it was Josiah's bedtime the ladder was moved away and he was in his own unassailable fortress.

That did not mean that Andrew did not have some siege warfare methods at his disposal. When we put him in the bottom bunk, he would often get out and play with Josiah's things, including Legos on the dresser; make noise; or operate the light switches. These were usually grounds for banishment to the crib. Other nights, they would both sleep (the trick was usually to get one asleep first while the other was out of the room). They would then wake up independently of each other and sometimes both be awake in the morning completely ignoring each other. Finally, almost two weeks later, Josiah noticed that Andrew was on the top bunk without the ladder. We brought him back down, and a few minutes later, we found him climbing over the end to get back up.