the one where I'm thwarted by a race car

It started with a Lightning McQueen bed tent found on clearance. 

It ended with the above mentioned bed tent being thrown down the basement stairs in a fit of rage at 1 a.m.

scary basement stairs

I had a bed tent as a kid. It was a My Little Ponies tent and I loved it. I would create stories about the ponies and let my imagination run wild. It's one of my favorite childhood memories.

My son and I have very similar personalities. He is an introvert and loves to be comfy cozy. I was so excited to surprise him with a hiding place. Realistically, I knew that a bed tent found on clearance probably wouldn't stand the test of time. However, I thought it would at least last the day. No such luck. An hour. The bed tent lasted an hour until my children ripped the entrance up to the top seam, throwing the whole support system out of whack.

Now I had a very upset 4 1/2 year old and a growing sense of anxiety about failing in my mission to recreate a precious childhood memory for my child. My husband jury rigged the tent to the bed and let him sleep in it that night. I checked on him before I went bed and it was like 1,000 degrees in that tent. His pillow was drenched, he was sweaty - it was a toddler sauna. I pulled the tent off the bed and told him I would fix it in the morning.

Fast forward to about 12:00 a.m. I was laying in bed obsessing about how I could fix the cheap, poorly made, poorly designed, toddler sauna. I get out of bed and go back into his room and while attempting to pull it out the door - quietly - I broke one of the support poles in half. So as I'm standing in my living room, trying to tape the broken pole together with blue painter's tape and clear packing tape, I realized that perhaps I was acting a little nuts.

This theory was only further confirmed by this message I sent to a friend in a "I've been on Pinterest for way too long and am feeling inadequate" panic.

    

At that point I put the iPad down and went to bed. W asked me about the bed tent once the next morning and hasn't said a word about it since. sigh.