Last night was a very special night.
Last night, we (and by “we” I mean my husband) lifted The Poo into her crib for the very last time. This morning, her big-girl bed arrives, in all its white bead-board glory.
We’ve waited weeks for this newest piece in the puzzle that is The Poo’s girlhood. She is growing so quickly, changing sometimes overnight. I’ll wake her in the morning only to find that her face is oh-so-subtly different that it was when I put her to bed the night before.
I will never forget the first night we tried to put her in her classic white spindle crib, or the night when she finally slept there all through the night.
Those first 10 hours of sleep two months to the day after her birth were a most welcome milestone, one I noted with glee and not a trace of sorrow.
While I’ve anticipated moving her into a twin bed for many weeks, last night I found myself mourning the baby who once slept with her bum waving in the air, a tiny body in the middle of what then seemed like an enormous space.
But anyone who knows The Poo also knows she is far from little – ranking in the 98th percentile for height, she is nearly as long as her crib. Some mornings I find her with an elbow or kneecap poking through the bars.
It is time, long past time, to move her into a bed.
But oh! Still I weep a little, deep, deep inside my mother-heart. In a scant four months, a new baby will inhabit the crib we chose for her so carefully, before we ever caught a glimpse of her little face.
I remember the day we bought it so clearly. It was just two months after my father died, and it was a gift from my mother.
My mom looked so small that day in her tights and tweed skirt, still dressed from her informal part-time job at a sewing machine shop. More coffee klatch than office, the shop kept her afloat in those early days after the funeral. It gave her a reason to get dressed.
We brought the huge box home and my husband set it up in the second bedroom of our loft, which was to serve as the nursery.
My mother watched, and we were all thinking the same thing. How different the task would have been, had The Poo’s grandfather been there to lend a hand.
This morning we disassembled the crib, rail by rail. I caressed each part slowly, reminding myself of the feel of the spindles under my hand before we carted the pieces into the basement.
So many memories in that wood. So many tears, of both sorrow and joy. It felt almost alive in my hands.
The Poo chose her new bedding, an outlandish sheet and comforter set embellished with her beloved ponies. We’ll dress the bed in its finery, and tonight she will lay her small head on a grown-up pillow.
While I won’t miss lifting a 35-pound three-year-old over the rail every morning, I will miss the small, wee lass who once slept there.
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Lovely.
This is such a beautiful post. It hits so many of the same chords I feel every time when I tuck my own toddler into his crib, and try to figure out how he got so very, very big. No doubt, the next step will be wonderful, too.
Beautiful post!!
You can take comfort in knowing that you’re going to set that crib up again though, no?
As fun as it is seeing them grow up and learn new things, I so sucks. LOL
Working at a preschool as I do now, I sometimes go into the baby room at naptime if I hear a baby crying, to see if I can lend a hand. A short while ago, one of the newbies, a four month old named Siyanda, was having a rough time. Mina and Betty had their hands full getting some of the others to sleep, so I took this tiny baby off their hands and carried him with me while I saw my own class (the 2-3 year olds) off to sleep. I rocked Siyanda in my arms as I shushed him and my Bambies alike, noting the differences between the toddlers who did as they were told, and the small baby who desperately wanted comfort.
It made me think so much of my nephew. Now, he’s the same age as the Bambies – nearly two, talking, running around. He’s a real little boy, not a baby any more. But I remember so well those first days of babysitting, when he nestled at only four months in my arms, and I was left to fend for myself, for the both of us, while my sister went back to work. I find it near impossible to think of this real little person who’s become such a keystone of our family as that tiny little thing who refused to take a bottle from me and howled for two weekends straight.
Siyanda slowly drifted off to sleep in my arms, and I felt such a profound sense of loss for the little baby of the family who’s grown up so big. I found myself longing more and more for a baby of my own.
Your post really touched a chord with me. Thanks for such a great blog. I don’t go a single day without checking it.
Sweet dreams to you all tonight!
Wistful and lovely; I bet that little lass is going to look mighty sweet in her big bed too.
My husband keeps mentioning a bed for our baby (now almost 2). I am not ready. Not at all. How do they grow up so fast?
I just went through this last month… we have a little boy arriving in August as well. I was so worked up about whether or not I would have a night wanderer or mommy’s bed visitor or if she would fall down the stairs in the middle of the night (even with a child gate), that I didn’t have time to muse too much on my grown up girl. But the first night when I spied her curled up in the corner of that GIANT bed, I cried and cried.
A month later, all is well. We have had no midnight tiny hand visits. She still runs in to her ‘new bed’ almost every night and bundles up.
ah but she is still in that little girl body, that baby spirit
We’ll be putting away our crib for the very last time in the next six months, a fact that immediately makes my heart feel like a stone in my chest.
oh friend – i just can’t imagine!
love the pictures of your big girl and her bed…
sweet dreams tonight!
Fast forward a few years: some nights I watch my son as he sleeps, in the big boy bed that once seemed HYUUUUGE in contrast to his little two year-old body. But now, he’s twelve, and occupies a significantly larger portion of the mattress. It’s the same bed, but where did my baby go?
Aw, man.
How bittersweet. I can’t wait to hear how it goes.
xo
I remember the transition from baby to toddler and from toddler to kid. I am happy to report that the older my little man gets, the more head-over-heels in love I am with him. I do feel like more than ever before, I want him to stay right here for just a little longer than I know he will.
I love what you wrote about the way some things link our present moments to the past. I wish you many happy memories of your dad and of your little Poo, just how she is, right now.
I know of what you write. It is bittersweet. Those photos of her and her bed are gorgeous, by the way.
Sweet, sweet, sweet.
Oh, but how that spirit will live on and be resurrected at the most unexpected times.
Piglet, at four and a half, is just moving from his fire truck toddler bed to a big boy loft bed. At least he’ll be able to stretch out now! I hope Poo adjusts well.
What a nice post. We’re just about at this point with Kitty Cat and I’m dreading it. Having been through it once before, I know that it changes everything about early morning…
I just wrote an entry about this at http://blog.parentmap.com/
Good luck with tonight.
a very, very important day indeed.
*sigh!*
And when your baby is born, she will seem even bigger than before. Who is this huge, big-handed, strong girl? It will be hard to remember that she is actually still a baby, in many ways. But she will remind you!
You seem to remember all the things to blog about that I always forget. Our youngest still sleeps with her bum in the air. She also manages to end up at the other end of the bed, face down like she landed there from a great height… although fast asleep.