Big Girl Bed

My baby girl is 23 months old now.  Which means that she is nearly 2.  Which means that I am starting to push the limit of how long I can continue to call her a 'baby'.  She is nearly a full grown kid.  Sure, she will *always* be *my* baby.  But she is becoming a big girl.
Case in point, Jocelyn has a big girl bed!  Actually, she has a whole bedroom set - dresser, bed, night stand.  We picked it out a few weeks ago and ordered it from Ashley Furniture.  It took a few weeks to get here, but now it's here and she just loves it!  When we went to the store to pick it out, I thought she would have an opinion.  It was important to me to have her at the store with us to pick out what she wanted.  What wound up happening is that Mike and I thought it was super cute, and she seemed to like it just fine (although, clearly enjoyed climbing in and out of it more than anything else).  But it was on sale (of course, who knows what actual 'full price' is... it's all on crazy mark up and then always on sale) so we bought it.

It came in this past weekend.  Unfortunately, Mike was out of town for the delivery, so I didn't want her sleeping in her new bed while Daddy wasn't around.  I didn't even invite her to sleep in it.  We kept the crib in her room and I just put her to bed in the crib.

And as soon as her new furniture was built and put into her room, I realized that I never did take proper nursery pictures.  We have plenty of pictures of her in her room, but none of the pretty room all decked out.  We do have video of it, but it may just be a blank in the baby book.  We've only had 2 years to do it... that's not nearly enough time!  :-P. 

But Mike was back on Sunday.  And guess who took a nap in her big girl bed!  If you guessed Jocelyn, then you win a cookie.  It was really cute.  We put her in there, she laid down, and we walked out of the room.  It was quiet.  When we went to check on her a few minutes later, she was standing there, flipping through a book that was sitting on the bed.  It was really cute, but it was nap time, so we told her to go to bed.

At night we gave her the choice - crib or big girl bed.  She chose big girl bed.  So I took her to her room, read her a few stories and sang her a few songs, and shut off the light.   She screamed, cried and carried on - usual bed time activity.  I told her that big girls don't scream and cry like that, so if she wanted to act that way she could sleep in her crib.  She then requested to sleep in her crib (big backfire, Mommy!).  And jumping, screaming and carrying on she did.  Mike eventually checked up on her, changed her diaper, and put her back to bed.  This time she wanted her big girl bed. And after he walked her for a few minutes, she told him she was ready for bed.  She talked to herself for a little while, and was asleep.  At night.  In her big girl bed.  Success!

Now, this morning, we went in to find her on her floor sleeping away.  I don't know if she fell out or got out.  But her feet and head were on the wrong sides.  So we don't know if she thrashed around a whole bunch and fell out, or got out to play and laid down and went back to sleep.

The cute thing was that in the morning she didn't realize that she could just walk into our room.  When she awoke in the morning she called out for Daddy to come and grab her.  Of course, Mike had just gotten into the shower, and she didn't want me (she made it up to me by insisting that I play tea party with her all morning).  She yelled and thrashed and kicked, screaming for Daddy.  I eventually convinced her that we could just go see him in the shower, and even then she didn't want to walk herself.  I had to pick her up and carry her.  I hope she doesn't figure out her new freedom any time soon.

With the big girl bed we took the gate off of her door.  It was a tough call.  We don't want the cats in her room, and we don't want her to wander anywhere potentially unsafe, but we also don't want her trapped in her room (or hurting herself while trying to pull down the gate).  So for now, it's down.

Anyway, my big girl is in her big girl bed.  And it's awesome :-).