Helping Daddy get the crib ready for storage.

Here's the new bed in its natural habitat.

A very happy, excited Bean. Giggle much?

Later, she actually DID sleep!

And she and Katie Kitty woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed!

It's been two weeks now since we brought the big guh bed home and put it into Bean's room. She's been doing really well, although the arrival of the bed coincided with some nightly major thunderstorms, so a few nights were interrupted by Mr. Brown. Bean says she is scared from time to time of the dark now, a little bit more than she did when she slept in her crib, but she still doesn't have tooooo much trouble getting to sleep at night. She's asked us to leave a lidduh tiny cwack in her door when we leave, so she gets some light and can hear us downstairs. At first I thought that would be a problem - keep her awake, etc. but she goes to sleep pretty quickly that way. I'm really proud of my sweet big girl. She's growing up.

I've been mostly fine with the transition. I had two little sad/nervous/gaspy moments though - one that first night (a Saturday), after I went to tuck her in before Daddy and I went to bed... I did my tucking and left a kiss on her cheek and then went to my room and had to lie down and just breathe for a few minutes, then I told Daddy, "We killed the crib! It's down there in the basement in the dark, all cold and sad. It's been with us for three years! I miss it." Daddy thought I was a little nuts. And then the next morning, we went to our diner for breakfast and Bean proudly told "Grandma" Terry and "Auntie" Angie about her first night in her new bed, Terry looked at me and said, "How's MOM doing with that?" and my eyes welled-up with tears. When we went to the diner the next Saturday, Auntie Angie gave Bean a pretty blue gift bag full of candy and coloring books and crayons and a windmill that spins when Bean blows on it, as a present for being such a grown-up girl! Bean was so excited and even remembered to say Thank you!

I think I just feel mostly proud though, of my sweet, beautiful, smart, loving Big Girl. But I do remember that week three years ago when Nana and I painted that old crib white and then struggled for hours, with Nana nearly in TEARS trying to get it assembled and ready for Bean to use, and then how Daddy came home and had it together in no time. And how sweet the little crib looked with its pink gingham bumper and its bunny rabbit sheet and the bunny mobile swaying along merrily, all clean and fresh and welcoming, waiting for my precious baby girl to lay her sweet head down and sleep the sleep of a content little baby. And all of the times I tucked her into that bed, clean, full-bellied and swaddled. The many different positions I'd find her in when I checked on her in the night. The mornings I'd go in to get her and see her sleepy smile grinning at me over the bars. The thumping of her little heels on the mattress that shook the floor when she'd fight her second nap and just lie there screeching and cooing and kicking those little feets for forty-five minutes. How she'd lie or sit on the floor of her room and play with the springs and the screws that held the bars up for ages. The teethmarks from where she stood and gnawed on the head of the bed while she was teething. That crib saw so much action, and was a virtual world of exploration for Bean as she grew.

She's enjoyed all the neat features of the new bed too, though. At the foot of it, doors slide open to reveal a huge under-bed storage area that she (and her Sissy and Buddy) can climb into and hide or play. And of course the drawers and cabinets give her a lot to look at and play with as well, although those don't seem as interesting to her as the secret hiding place under the bed, yet. Her bedrail temporarily blocks them anyway, when it is down during the daytime. I don't think she really needs the rail, but we have it there to help her feel all safe and secure, and that it does! Plenty of time to use the drawers and cabinet later. If she used them now it'd bother me anyway, as the two of us would probably have very different ideas about what belonged in them and how it should all be organized.

We all love the fact that we can read bedtime stories lying down in Bean's bed now. Very cozy. And Bean still has to have her books in bed with her until she goes to sleep, along with Katie Kitty and whichever other animal is in favor around bedtime, too. We have to help her pick and choose what stays and what goes lest the bed be entirely too crowded for restful sleep!

All in all, a very successful, easy transition for Bean, and a bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter, one for Mama.