Who would have thought that this would be the source of tears? It’s so cute!

Yes, that’s a toddler bed.  Where a crib once stood.  I posted the crib on CraigsList and it was gobbled up in a week, drop side and all.  (If you’re not a parent, you may be aware that drop-side cribs have all been recalled.  Then again, if you’re not a parent you probably have no clue what a drop-side crib is in the first place.)

But the crib is gone, which means that the little one is growing up and is not a baby anymore.  There’s a bit of me that’s sad about not having another baby in the house. (Grandparents, don’t see this as an invitation to remind me that another baby is entirely possible.  I’m done with the baby-making business.) It’s more that I can’t believe that my little baby girl is old enough for a bed.  It’s just so….grown-up!  The transition to a bed was seamless.  The first couple nights she got up and just walked over to the gate at the top of the stairs and stood there.  We went up to tell her that she needed to go to bed, and she toddled down the hall, back into her bed and fell asleep.

Yes, that’s it.

Don’t be jealous.  The boy gave us no END of trouble at bedtime, and still only falls asleep begrudgingly and usually in our bed.  I remember when there would be a couple hours of screaming tantrums at bedtime, eventually followed by silence.  We’d go to check on the boy and have a moment of panic when we saw nothing in the bed.  He’d taken his pillow and covers and gone to sleep in his CLOSET. Yeesh.  I’ve paid my dues in non-sleeping children.  That the girl is such an easy sleeper makes me feel so much better about myself–the boy’s terrible sleep habits have little to do with me as a parent, and are basically just how he is.  Of course, the girl’s wonderfully easy sleep habits have everything to do with my amazing parenting.

The next frontier…the potty!