Sunday, August 12, 2018

big girl things

I’m having a moment. A moment of excitement, sadness, bittersweet pride, and mixed into all of that, my moment is being hijacked by pregnancy hormones multiplying it all by 100. My baby girl, now 28 months [I know it’s annoying to not just say “2”...but this is my moment], is spending her first night in her big girl room. We’ve spent the last three months thinking about the decorations, picking out her big girl bed, researching mattresses, and talking up the transition to get her excited about not just giving up her crib, but moving across the hall. Occasionally I had some anxiety and fear about the possibility she wouldn’t stay in her bed, would play all night, would fall out of her bed while asleep. Those are all fears I’m still having as we are only one hour in as I write this. 

I was excited. Ready. Excited and ready to re-organize her stuff, clean out stuff we don’t need, and begin putting together Baby Boy Keely’s nursery [Rea’s Old room]. Why we decided to do that on a Sunday night, when I have a super early work day tomorrow, versus a Friday night, I’ll never know. We do things bass ackards I guess. 

So today we did it. We put together her big girl room minus a few things were still waiting on to be shipped. And Rea loved helping. We went through her stuffies and divided up what she wanted to keep and what she wanted Baby Brother to have. Same with her books. It went really well. Surprisingly well. Brother is even getting to keep an Elmo. That’s huge. 

We tested out naptime and just as I expected, she didn’t really like being alone in a new room. So I laid down with her, and we both napped. She didn’t nap as easily or as long as she normally does in her crib, but I’ll take it. Still worried about the night...

We played the rest of the afternoon in the middle of the absolute mess that was our house after emptying out our only junk room to make way for her big girl things. Every time I would start to clean it up, she’d beg for my attention. “Mommy please play with me.” Ouch. So I complied, reminding myself of my present over perfect journey that I started at the beginning of this year. 

Bedtime came, and she started telling us how scary she thought her room was. Here it comes, I thought. No sleep for any of us tonight. We showed her the monitor, let her take turns watching us and talking to us through the other end, and even playing a version of Simon Says to make her understand that we can always see her and she can always talk to us through it. We read a few books and laid down together on her big girl mattress.

We have a “two” rule at our house. If you’re good, we’ll read two books, and [used to be] mommy will rock and sing for two minutes and daddy will rock and sing for two minutes. Then it’s bedtime. No negotiations. Our rocking chair is staying in baby’s room, and I didn’t realize just how sad that would make me. Instead of rocking, I laid with her and sang for two minutes, then left, while Nick laid and sang with her for two minutes. I was convinced it’d be an hour of crying before Nick came out of her room, but only two minutes later, I hear him shut her door and she hadn’t made a sound. 

She told Nick after his two minutes that she was still scared and that she’d feel safer if Mia stayed. So Mia is currently in there sleeping with her....I want to laugh, roll my eyes, and cry all at once. I started to clean up, RELIEVED she was fine, and realized I wasn’t. I put some stuff in Baby’s room, and got super emotional seeing the rocking chair. I didn’t rock my girl for the first time in 28 months. Oh these hormones are mean. This shouldn’t be getting to me like this. I decided to just stare at her through the monitor and I saw her start to get out of bed. Great. Here we go.. I showed Nick and just when I started to tell him to tell her to get back in the bed, he smiled. She had gotten out of bed to put her books back where they belong, crawled back in, and laid down. 

Bless. This. Sweet. Child. My heart is exploding. I am so proud of her for being brave, for listening, for being a big girl. But I’m so sad that she’s old enough to be so brave and do such big girl things. I am a mess over here thinking about how LONG the days feel but how short the years actually are. Thus my blog post...self-care. We are now an hour and fifteen minutes in, she’s asleep...in her bed. Has not cried. Has not played. Has not screamed or tried to negotiate.

I am fully aware that this could be beginners luck and we will without doubt run into our fair share of frustration with getting her to settle down in the future when a big girl bed offers so much freedom. But for now, I am so so proud, and so so sad that my baby girl is growing up! 


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