The Big Boy Bed

So tonight we bought Noah a big boy bed.... It was an impulse buy, sort of. Brian and I have been brainstorming about how to re-do Noah's bedroom as his two year birthday is approaching. He is not even close to climbing out of his crib, but nevertheless we feel like reaching your two year milestone calls for moving on to bigger and better things as far as beds are concerned.

We had decided on a cars theme, if you know Noah, you know how thrilled he'll be with this. The dude lives for cars. Seriously, he said cars and made the vroom sound before he regularly called me Mama. I try not to hold that against him. Anyway, we picked out a race car bed that Brian would build in his new workshop aka: garage, I looked at material for a bedspread and curtains and voila! A plan began to take shape. I'm realizing that I'm not quite as excited about moving Noah to a big bed as I was Julia, for some reason, I'm wanting to hold on to this baby just a little longer.... But I comfort myself with the fact that Noah's birthday is 5 months away, in May, so... maybe by then he'll seem a little older, and I'll be ready to roll....

So anyway, back to the bed purchase. Brian found a Race Car toddler bed on sale on Craigslist. He makes a great case for it. It will be a better transition for Noah, he'll still make the twin sized bed, only with this plan, it takes the pressure of the deadline off. We can use his crib mattress... It's only $40.00 and we're sure to re-coup most of the cost back on craigslist when we're ready to move on... I try to confront my not so exuberant emotions looking for some sort of reasonable excuse to argue against the bed, but I come up empty. As a last ditch effort I called the family back and asked them if they'd take $30.00 for the bed... I figured if they said no maybe I'd argue $40 is to much for a used bed... yeah, right. No such luck, they lady was all too enthused to get some cash and move the 5 foot piece of royal blue plastic taking up space in her house. The next thing I know we're loading up the kids at 7:30 PM and start our 1 hour trek to Suffolk.

I know what your thinking, an hour each way on a Sunday night at bed-time??? But it wasn't so bad really, we didn't have anything better to do. With their movies, the kids do great in the car and when we're not fighting, Brian and I have some of our most memorable discussions on road trips. The ride was fun, the kids were quiet, we successfully journeyed through the peanut fields and windy dark paths and ended up with the Car Bed strapped carefully on top of our SUV. On the way home we discussed when to put Noah in his bed. My vote was May and I had lots of reasons for this. After all, to ensure a smooth transition, I need to get a big boy comforter, paint the bedroom, take down the crib... etc.... May gives me plenty of time. However, once again I got outvoted. Julia and Brian were so excited that the lysol had barely dried when Brian pushed the crib out of the way and proudly placed the Car in Noah's room. I carried my sleeping "big boy" upstairs and laid him in his new bed, having never seen the bed, he was completely and totally unaware....

I'm having trouble sleeping tonight. Obviously, its 4 AM and I'm writing this. I'm thinking of Noah as a Newborn. Noah just beginning to sit, starting to crawl. Noah chasing his sister, running and playing.... I want to grab time by the tail and slow it down. I thought we moved Julia early, and we didn't move her until March! This is two whole months sooner than that. I guess this is like any other phase. A brilliant auther wrote a childrens book about celebrating their firsts, and grieving at little at their lasts. Last night was the last night Noah will sleep in his crib. When I laid him down, I didn't know that... When he woke up from his nap yesterday and I pulled him out over the rail, I didn't know it would be the last time. But it's like that with every stage, you don't know the minute before they do something new that it will be the last time the aren't able to....

Noah woke up a few minutes ago. He was confused. Poor kid, he could see his crib, but wasn't in it. I'm not sure he realized what he was in, even after I told him. He pointed to his crib... "Crib". Yep, baby that was your crib, but this, this is your Big Boy Car Bed. "Yeah!" he said. "Ba Ba?" I know, I know, if Noah is old enough for a bed he's too old for a bottle. But I carried him downstairs warmed up some milk and then cuddled him on his new bed while he drank it. I prayed it would hold me. Then I told my baby what a big boy he was as he drank his bottle. One small comfort, Noah looks awfully little in that toddler bed.

Some things just take time.... It's a little harder to let go the second time around.