When we returned from Disney, we made some changes to the house. We rearranged the play room . . not out of any necessity, more just so that I didn't go postal one day and napalm the entire thing. It's a lot less messy now on a daily basis, and the train set Santa brought got moved in there. We also disassembled Lily's crib and bought her a toddler bed for her room. A funny aside about the toddler bed . . about 6 months after Mandi and I started dating we were preparing for Avery's third Christmas. Mandi made a big deal out of the "Tyler Bed" she was getting for her, and I played along as though I knew what she was talking about. I understood that it was more of a bed than the current crib, but knew not why it was called "Tyler". Maybe it was some relevant brand name. What did I know, I didn't have kids at that point, so all of their accessories were foreign to me. Christmas came around and I assembled the new bed for Avery, all the while wondering why it was so named. Once we gave it to Ave, we just called it her "Big Girl Bed", but my curiosity lingered. So one day, I asked Mandi why it was called a Tyler Bed. Her look, which I've seen many times since, could only mean one thing. I was an idiot, and I'd just let words escape my mouth that I'd always want to take back. You see, she'd been saying "toddler bed" the whole time, but apparently that particular phrase invoked more of her native accent than other words did. She clowned me mercilessly, and to this day I joke of the "Tyler Bed" in a more-than-mildly self-deprecating way when the topic comes up.
But I digress. I put Lily's new bed together last week and we surprised her with it after her nap. She'd done pretty well in her blow-up bed while we were on vacation, so we expected a pretty smooth transition now that we were home. Needless to say, those expectations were not met.
Night number one was a struggle, requiring multiple attempts at putting her to bed, and eventually inflating the blow-up bed for her to sleep in instead. The next afternoon, we received a red herring in the form of a really good nap in the new bed. That night, unfortunately, required twice as many put-backs as the previous one, as well as the addition of a baby gate to her doorway and multiple threats of being vanquished to the pack-and-play. Subsequent nights have included ventures into our room, switching into the blow-up bed in the middle of the night, and a lot more of the difficult moments putting her to sleep.
Last night, however, takes the cake. The Beaner skipped her nap yesterday, as I'm preparing myself for her to do more and more often. The positive part of that is that she's a lot sleepier at bed time, and last night she went to bed with no problems. I checked on her before Mandi and I retired, and she was sound asleep on her back in her bed. Then, at around 12:45 I heard her abruptly start crying. This was not drama-queen crying, it was genuinely scared or hurt crying. I rushed in to the room and was dumbfounded. I could still hear the crying, but for the life of me I could not locate its source. I turned on the light, but the fog of my recent sleep kept me from truly comprehending what was going on. I honestly started questioning the existence of ghosts. Then it clicked. I got down on my stomach and peered under the bed, and there was Lily, arguably still sound asleep but crying nonetheless. I lifted up the bed, told her to crawl out, and did my best to calm her down. Once she got her bearings, she calmed down and seemed ready to be put back to bed. I listened in on the monitor for a few minutes, and when I was certain the crisis had been averted I went back to sleep.
Fast forward to this morning. Mandi and I are finishing our breakfast at around 5:30 and we hear a loud "THUD" from upstairs. The monitor was turned down, so it was unclear which child's room was the source of the noise. We turned the monitor up and didn't hear Lily stirring, so we brushed it off as possibly a cup falling out of her bed or even Avery's remote control hitting the floor. We would soon have all of our questions answered. We cleaned up, and as Mandi finished packing her suitcase-sized lunch I escaped to the restroom. When I emerged, Lily was waiting at the door to greet me with her story. Proudly, and without so much as a "good morning", she told me "Daddy, I fell out of my big girl bed and got a boo boo!"
"Where, Lily?"
With a quizzical look she replied, "On the floor Daddy".
"No Lil, where on your body did you get the boo boo?".
Her answer was non-verbal, and it's best described not by words, but by the following photo. Unfortunately I did not capture this in real time, as I am not in the habit of taking the camera to the bathroom. So this photo, while posed, is the most accurate representation of the actual events I could attain.
