Baby's Got A Brand-New Bed

My baby girl is not much of a baby any more...especially after last week. After letting her sleep in the crib for the last two and a half years, we finally decided to transition Aurora into a "big-girl" bed. Luckily, we already had a box spring, frame, and headboard from back when Lorelai first got her own bed; all we needed to do was buy a mattress (well, that and a mattress cover...we do potty-train on these mattresses, after all!)

As you can see, Aurora was pretty pleased with the results:

Even with the twin bed, all three girls still fit easily into one bedroom (Lorelai and Celeste are still using the bunk bed). Nathan and I think we will keep them together in one room for a while longer, and see how they like it! It's nice that the girls still enjoy one another's company.

Aurora chose the bedsheets herself; that may explain why their colors clash with the other girls' bedsheets, not to mention the pink walls! Oh, well, we have never been a "high-fashion" kind of family; our home will never make it into Martha Stewart Living. What matters to us is comfort and enjoyment.

Aurora's been in the bed for a week now; to the best of our knowledge, she hasn't rolled out of bed yet! We have some pillows on the floor to cushion the fall, just in case. There have been a few nights (like last night, ugh!) when Aurora wakes up in the middle of the night and comes crawling into our bed to go back to sleep (sometimes multiple times!). Granted, Aurora often did this before she got her bed, so it may not be a huge factor. Perhaps it's because we've started leaving their windows open at night, and she's awakened by outside noises. It may be because she's not used to sleeping "out in the open," without the walls of the crib surrounding her. Regardless, I suspect the transition will continue to go fairly smoothly.

On the potty-training front, Aurora is also doing very well...ridiculously well, even. I've often heard people talk about their kids "potty-training themselves," and I never understood what that meant. Lorelai took a few months before I felt really comfortable taking her out in public. Celeste's potty training was a year-long, tearful, raging war, that brought me to the edge of my patience and beyond on many occasions.

Aurora, however, just gets it. She has essentially potty-trained herself. She understands what she needs to do, and she does it. She learned her body's signals very quickly, and is quick to alert me or any nearby adult when she needs help. She wipes; she flushes; she gets new clean panties when necessary. Aurora is her own cheerleading squad, joyfully shouting, "I DID IT!!" after each successful trip to the bathroom. She hasn't needed any bribing, threatening, or pressuring at all. On her own, she started removing all my strategically placed towels from chairs and couches all through the house. "I don't need these," she would tell me. What confidence!

She's not perfect yet, of course; "Number Two" is still an issue and probably will be for a while. Luckily, Aurora has bowels of iron; she can "hold it" for HOURS on end, so the chances of getting to the potty in time are much higher than they were with my other girls. At this point, she's almost too much of a perfectionist; once her nightly diaper is on (we're going to finish off the diapers before we put her in Pull-Ups at night), she often bugs us to take it off, because she needs to "go" again.  Apparently, she has forgotten that diapers are designed to catch nightly accidents; still, I can't be angry at her for wanting to always use the potty from now on!

Cute new portrait of my three favorite gals!

All the growing-up that Aurora's been doing lately has both thrilled and saddened me. I am so proud of her; she is a clever, happy, strong-willed girl and I am happy she is growing up and learning new things all the time. On the other hand, all these new changes have just reminded me that my cuddly little "baby" is not a baby any more, but a little girl who's getting bigger all the time. It's getting harder for her to curl up inside my lap, and her sweet kisses are getting less frequent. She is my youngest kid (and maybe my last kid, too!); it's hard not to feel bittersweet about her growing up, as I grow older. But I am so happy for my three girls. I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world, no matter their ages!