Goodbye to Nora’s Nursery

On Friday, I let go of another piece of my “baby.”

Nora got a big girl bed. A real big girl bed.

We made the transition to a toddler bed a few months ago without issue. All we had to do was take the front off of her crib and add the toddler rail, so it was no big thing, at least to her. I was sad back then, knowing that I would no longer walk in her door to see her standing, smiling at me over the edge. I would no longer lower her down into it at night, leaning on the side of the crib as I rubbed her back while I sang a song.

There were other changes we instituted at that time, too. We no longer rocked while we read bedtime stories. We took the change as an opportunity to break the rocking “habit,” and instead read to her in her bed. Again, she adapted like it was no big thing. The glider continued to sit in her room, but it went unused.

The truth of the matter was… I had a big girl now.

With the new baby on the way, we had a plan for all of this. We knew we’d need to transition her to the toddler bed to transition her to a big bed, so that we could free up the crib. We knew we’d have to get her off of the rocking part of the routine so we could also take the glider. I didn’t plan to actually get her a big bed until the spring, but we started seeing ads for President’s Day sales, and someone told me that President’s Day is one of the four best times of the year to buy a mattress. Go figure.

So we shopped around, we debated—do we get something cheap, or something that we hope will last a long time? We ultimately decided to spend a little more than we initially planned to get something that will hopefully carry her through her whole childhood. We ordered it last Sunday, and it was scheduled to be delivered Friday.

Friday came faster than I thought it would. On Thursday night, I couldn’t believe that I was putting her to bed for the last time in that little toddler bed. On Friday, before the delivery could come and screw everything up, I went into her room to snap the last pictures of my baby girl’s nursery. It’s not the one we brought her home from the hospital to, but it has the same color walls. Same furniture. A lot of the same stuff. It’s still a place where I nursed her and rocked her and literally watched her grow from an infant into a toddler.

The walls—they will soon be purple. Because my baby? She has opinions now. And she doesn’t like to be referred to as a baby, by the way. On Thursday night, as she was crawling into her toddler bed for the last time, I said, “I’m sad!” Nora said, “Mama! HAPPY!” And then I dramatically exclaimed, “But you’re my BABY!” And Nora looked at me, smiled, and said, “No BABY, Mama. BIG GIRL.”

And so she is.

The big bed—the new one is a full, by the way, so it is definitely BIG!—is just the first step. Now, over the next few months, we’ll transform this space into her big girl room. Purple on the walls, new bedding, some other new stuff. We’ll actually paint her bedroom door (it’s still the manufacturer’s “primed,” since we STILL have not painted the upstairs doors after replacing them all, whoops). We’ll actually put up some closet doors again. For a while, her room will be a mish-mash of stuff, but by the time this baby gets here, it will be very different. I actually have to work up the courage to paint over that bright, cheerful aqua blue, because I feel so very nostalgic about it. *sigh*

We made a big deal about the big girl bed. We took Nora with us when we ordered it, and talked it up while in the store. We let her “try out” mattresses in the store. We asked her what color she wanted the new bed to be (meaning the sheets), knowing for sure that she would say purple. And she did. So then we spent all week talking up the “purple big girl bed.”

When Michael brought her home on Friday night, I told her I had a surprise for her in her room. She scrambled up the stairs and into her room with a big grin. She saw that big girl bed, and she immediately wanted to get up onto it. She loved the purple sheets. She loved that it was hers. The crib (well, toddler bed) was still in the room, just pushed over to the side. I was nervous about removing it completely because I didn’t want her to freak out. Of course, she had a field day playing in the toddler bed, too, because don’t you know that moving something to another wall makes it REALLY COOL AND NEW again? :)

At bedtime on Friday night… it as big girl bed time. And she did so, so good. She loved that we could both lie in it to read with her. We did our normal bedtime routine—three books, three songs. And then I kissed her goodnight and left the room and… she went to sleep. She was passed out within five minutes.

MY BABY. She’s so big, but she looks so small in that giant bed. I can’t even take it.

She apparently loved the big girl bed so much that she actually slept until after 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. I went in and WOKE HER UP, people. She slept for 13+ freaking hours. And then? We weren’t sure how naptime would go, but… 3-hour nap. Again, HAD TO WAKE HER UP. Who is this kid? :) One who loves her big girl bed, that’s for sure.

Saturday night was also successful. So, tonight after dinner, we went into her room with the allen wrenches and we disassembled that crib. That crib that we picked out of a catalog before we even knew this little girl—before we had ever laid eyes on her. The one that we put together when I had a burgeoning belly, so excited to prepare for our little one’s arrival.

And again, it was sad. But we moved each of the pieces out of Nora’s room… and into the one next to her. The one that right now is a dumping ground for a lot of stuff, but will soon become the room of another precious little baby. Somehow, it made the sting just a little less painful.

But I will definitely miss this room.