This day has come too soon...

While today was the big Back to School Day for my county, it was a milestone of a different kind for my Lilli.

Before:
(Yes, I'm aware that you're not supposed to use a mobile after 5 months, no toddlers were harmed by it staying put)


After:

*sigh*

I officially, for the first time in almost 4 years, do not have a child small enough and cooperative enough to be in a crib.

I happily kept Elizabeth in her crib until she was almost 3, she never climbed out, and I liked knowing she was staying put. I only switched her over to a toddler bed because (as I suspected) the crib was inhibiting her potty training.

Lilli is a lot different.

The crib did not impede her using the potty one bit, so I planned to keep her in there indefinitely. She had other ideas. For the last week or two things have been mysteriously appearing in her crib overnight. I could explain the things away as someone other than me putting something in her bed that had been under blankets so I didn't see it when tucking her in. And we knew that she could reach her lamp cord through the crib bars, since she no longer has a functioning lamp in her room due to that ability. So, I didn't wonder much.

But last night, after Lilli should have been asleep, I heard her talking to two of her dolls that had NOT been in her bed when I left her room. I went to check on her and found her in her crib, not only with those two dolls, but with the rest of the dolls they had shared a basket with, the basket, and 5 or 6 books that had also not previously been in her bed with her. The basket of dolls had been on a bookshelf at floor level, way too low for her to have reached through the bars and somehow levered them up, and the books had been on the side of the shelf farthest away from the crib. She said that she had gotten out of her crib to get them and climbed back in again, but she refused to show me how. I was horrified but groggy.

Today my dad called me, very distressed, because he'd caught Lilli in the act of climbing out of bed. Not such a big deal if she does it successfully every time, or if we had carpet, but later this afternoon she tried it again and it didn't go so well, and we have tile throughout our house.

So now she has a toddler bed.

And my heart is a little bit broken.

This was too sudden and I did not have time to mentally prepare. I thought I had my crib baby for almost another year. I will miss the way she still loved her mobile and would use it as a night light to "read" in bed by. I will miss the way that she would want me to roll her blanket up into a bolster and curve it up into a "C" shape so she could curl up in it and then have me cover her feet with her pillow. I will miss the way she would move her pillow sideways to lie horizontally across her crib and stick her feet through the bars to rest them on the wall and then sing herself to sleep.

I'm sure that I'll have new mental pictures of her all cozied up in her Big Girl bed soon, but I resent that I need to create them. I will remember this first night though. She was very excited to get the bed, and get in the bed, but when I kissed her good night and headed for the door, she call me back in a tiny and very hesitant voice. I could tell she was a little nervous.

Until, that is, I rolled her blanket up into a "C" shape, snuggled her up in the curve, and covered her feet with her pillow.

It's nice to know that some things don't change.