Lily as a Texan

A week and a half left until Lily turns three. THREE? How is that possible? She is growing by leaps and bounds.

On Thursday, she announced she wanted a big bed. I’d introduced this concept a few times in the past year with horrible results. Lily has one of those deadly-can’t-be-resold-recalled-but-oh-so-convenient drop side cribs. I often remove the side to change the sheets and I’ve presented the daybed-esque bed to her before only to have Lily burst into tears and crumble to the floor in a pile pleading that I “make it a crib!” She can climb into the crib herself and has never attempted to climb out, even though she could have. When we had it on a wood floor, she’d scoot her crib around the room, gathering toys, turning the radio on… Hearing she wanted to suddenly have a big girl bed was a revelation. I figured it made more sense to wait until Friday night so we could volley her back into bed several times and still possibly recover some sleep.

Friday morning, I told her the plan, she was very excited. Luckily, we happened to have the toddler bed rails in our apartment storage room and not the big storage unit. I pulled one out before school so she could see it. Building the excitement. Friday afternoon, I picked Lily up from school and she walked in the door, saw that bedrail, dropped her backpack and was off to make herself a big girl bed.

“Take a picture of me sleeping”, she says.

After a very exciting day of trying out the bed, climbing in and out of the bed, inviting others and the cats to enjoy her comfy bed, Lily would have gone to bed at 4pm if given the chance. Bedtime could not come soon enough for her. The girls were in bed the earliest they’d been all week, tucked in, stories read and lights out by 8.  There was a lot of giggling and talking, but Lily stayed put in her bed.

The bonus of having a free-range girl? In the morning, rather than hearing shouts and pleas for release, we get a cute, curly, morning-haired girl climbing into our bed to cuddle.

Night two went well, but at 3am, we had a curly-haired visitor with a giant smile. I thought she was ready for morning given her spunk, but she just needed a diaper change and was happy to be tucked in again.

Night three we thought went smoothly, but when I went into their bathroom, I noted that all of the ponies and horses in the girls’ cavalry had been lined up in the bathroom to guard the door. I knew this hadn’t happened before they went into their beds. I figured it was Ella. This morning, when I asked about the horses, Lily proudly piped up that she took the horses out so they could be a family and then got back into bed. Ha! I’m sure the honeymoon period will be gone before we know it and she’ll be roaming the house like Ella did and we’ll have to gate up the doors, but for now, Lily is officially a big girl.

In other big girl news, we switched her from a sippy cup to a glass. Lily was very angry about this step in growing up. She refused to use her glass for a couple of days, which was fine because she ate more solid foods. We still give her a sippy cup at bedtime, because I’m not about to trust her to replace an open cup to the bedside table, especially since this was pre-big girl bed. But now, a few weeks into it, she actually corrected Loran when he pulled a sippy cup off the shelf during the day out of habit. “Daddy, I drink out of a big girl cup, not a sippy cup!” Oh yes Lily, that wasn’t you just a week ago screaming and writhing on the floor over your sippy cup.

Lily’s art skills continue to improve. She surprised us a couple of weeks ago by writing her name. We didn’t know she could do it, but she’s been practicing. The Y is still pretty difficult, but she keeps working on it. Last week, she brought these pieces of art home from school. Very proud, all of us.

Some random photos since we’ve been Texans.

Lily climbs the playground’s climbing wall without fear or hesitation, once she lost her footing and rather than fall, she just hung by her fingers while her legs dangled until she could find her footing. Like a true climber.

Goofing off and wearing Daddy’s cowboy boots…with her shoes on underneath!

This pose is called, sit there, put your hands up and don’t touch anything. Lily had to take this pose after she broke a bottle of nail polish on the tile floor in the bathroom. Luckily, the majority of the mess was contained in the bottle, a little on the tile (not the grout, thankfully) and a little on Lily. It all cleaned up with nail polish remover and we went on to sit on the balcony in the sun and paint our fingers and toes fabulous colors with glitter, but not red. Red is out of commission.

Growing up too fast. Slow down Dr. Lil!