The Big Girl Bed

After school today I took apart Joelle's crib and made it into a "big girl bed". She was so excited and proud of herself. I told her I would get it all set up and then call her into her room. She got a big girl pillow as well. As you can see she is pleased as punch.

Here she is practicing. I think if I told her she had to go to bed right then, she might have.

And here we are ready for bed. I told her that big girls did not get out of their beds. And if big girls did get out of their beds, then their stuffed animals had to get out of the bed too. I think she was sufficiently worried about not having them to sleep with that she just may make the transition without too much trouble.

It is funny, how emotional I became. I thought back to when she was about 3 months old and still sleeping in the bassinet in my room. All of a sudden she began waking up more during the night and I realized it was because she was too big for the bassinet and I was going to have to switch her to the crib. That was hard. At that time I felt that a part of her infancy was gone forever. I had lost something that I wasn't going to get back. As I watched her walk to her "big girl bed", I had that same feeling. In gaining something as wonderful as a growing child who was ready to begin sleeping in a real bed, I had lost my little toddler who needed her crib. It was like saying goodbye to the last of the baby in her. And I know this will not be the last time I feel this way.