A couple weeks ago, I bought a mattress for my son Max. My wife Barbara and I decided that since the top rail of the crib didn't even make it up to his waist, we might as well get him in a real bed before he decided to start vaulting to the floor.

This is one of those decisions that most parents hate to face. My wife's mom once insisted that her children didn't get out of the crib until they were almost old enough for school. She's since recanted that testimony, but she's still rather concerned that we allow Max to sleep untethered.

For the most part, however, the transition has been relatively smooth. Not that we were worried about the nights. While still in the crib, he often serenaded us with "The Eensy Weensy Spider" or "Franco Unamerican" (a catchy little anti-Bush ditty by the band NOFX) while calming himself down to sleep. I was a bit more worried about naptime, and with good reason. Naps didn't go well the first week, but they've been alright the second. Today Max went down fairly quickly and slept for almost four hours--his longest nap yet in the "big boy bed."

But as any parent will tell you, nap time and bed time aren't the issue. Mornings are.

Some of our friends told us that their children began rising at earlier and earlier hours after moving to beds. The kids would try to roust their parents out of bed at six or even five in the morning. I have been led to understand that I was, in fact, one of those kids as well.

Max isn't. He has been getting up sometime between seven-thirty and eight-thirty, which is just fine. And when we moved him to his bed, we knew we were okay because he couldn't open the door to his room with any regularity. If he got up early, he'd try the door, find he couldn't open it and then lie back down and sleep some more.

Took him a week to get that situation rectified. Last Monday or Tuesday, we heard him get up and start his CD player--he likes to begin the day with a song. Then we heard him rattle the door to his room. Then we heard the loud chunk-click (we live in an old house, and the door hardware isn't exactly smooth in its operation) and patter of feet down the hallway.

Did he come into our room to torment us? Of course not. He ran to the front of the house to crank up the stereo up there. Then he picked up his stool and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. These are things that he's not supposed to do unless he's asked one of us for permission. Wake us up? You've got to be kidding. He's a reasonably smart kid and he knew that he could make more mischief without parental supervision.

Of course, we didn't sleep while he roamed the house. We have childproofed the place, but there are some things he could do to hurt himself. His friend Alex, who turns three at the end of the summer, broke his arm a couple weeks ago. The way Max makes moves to launch himself off the back of the couch, it's apparent that he wants a matching purple cast of his own.

After about five minutes of solo fun, Max wanders back to greet us with "I want some breakfast," or, if he's feeling courteous, "Please may I have some breakfast please?" One of us gets up (usually Barbara) and gives him his banana, cereal, milk and paper (he can't read it, but he does like to look at the pictures on the sports pages and announce--mostly accurately--the sports being played).

After his naps, the routine is much the same. He gets up, turns on his CD player, sings a little bit and then comes out to say hi to me. Short of locking him in his room (and we don't have the skeleton key necessary, anyway), we can't keep him get getting around the house. With the exception of my office, which is gated, he can get just about anywhere. He's even figured out how to defeat the child safety latches on cabinet doors, which is pretty surprising given his general lack of motor skills. The house is his.

And I guess that's how it should be. Now that he's old enough to begin to understand the consequences of his actions (and throw some truly impressive tantrums), he might as well have all the rights and responsibilities of a more-fledged member of the household. And if he's ready to roam, then teaching him how to do the dishes can't be that far down the road.

Maybe this growing up thing isn't so bad after all.

Jon Worley does the cooking and the dishes in his house. Any help from Max would be most welcome.