Monday, April 11, 2011

Big Changes for our Big Girl


Over the past month, Phoebe has had a challenge before her.
The task was to see how many stickers she could get for each night she slept through the night. (no screaming for Mom or Dad, no waking up and trying to get us to come in…) A lot of this had to do with me going back to work. There was a morning I had to leave for a meeting before she woke up, and that set off a string of bad nights for all of us. So Jeff drew up a beautiful, colorful chart and each night our girl slept through, she would get to put a sticker on her chart in the morning. The goal was to get a “big” bed like many of her friends. Maddo and Luca and Kai who all live in our building and who all have turned 4 already, all have big kid beds. (Nothing like a little early peer pressure to motivate a child.) We heard from Phoebe’s teachers that she would report to them about her chart every day and what kind of sticker she got that day. We’ve had butterflies, smiley faces, elephants, pigs, gorillas, pandas and even a giraffe. Her current fav. is a whole week of heart stickers.

After a full month of successful nights, we took out the bed side-rail we’ve been saving since she was a baby. Phoebe helped her Dad as he got out the tool box, took the old ‘baby’ rail off and put in her new ‘big girl’ side rail.

As you can see from this photo, the pride in her accomplishment is undeniable. This morning she woke up, got herself out of bed and headed for the bathroom like any big kid would. We are so proud of our little person, growing up so very fast before our eyes.