Not my proudest parenting moment...

So I think I've been avoiding writing this post for a couple of reasons.

1. About a month ago we moved Clara from a crib to a toddler bed. It was time. Who needs sleep anyway right?

2. It was not my proudest parenting moment.

Let me explain a little bit. My parents have this adorable little toddler bed that they offered to let us use. We knew we needed to get her in a bed soon because we didn't want her to feel displaced when the baby comes. So we agreed.

My dad pulled it out of storage and did a lot of work on it to sand it down, fill in any holes or scratches, and paint it. It looked beautiful when he was done. So we set it up for Clara at their house and she got really excited about the cool bed in the living room. We thought, "Great, she loves the thing already. This shouldn't be that bad."

We brought it home and set it up during family night. Clara was beside herself excited. She was trying to help Joe in any way possible. It was so cute!

Then the ominous time arrived and we got her ready for bed, did the normal routine and put her down to sleep at 8:30PM like normal. To our total surprise she sayed in bed...for about an hour and a half. After that hour and a half she was literally up every 2-5 minutes. We figured the fun of it started wearing off for her. So as we continued to put her back to bed hour after hour and our patience continued to wear thinner and thinner, she finally went to sleep around midnight as Joe and I were turning in for the night. We were so relieved when she finally went to sleep and we were probably out ourselves in a matter of minutes.

Then I woke up suddenly around 3:30AM. I got the impression to go and check on Clara. When I went into her room, she was still laying in her bed, but she was laying in a pile of throw up. I felt like a terrible mother. We got her up, got her cleaned up, and I ended up sleeping with her the rest of the night in her bed. I felt so bad. Clara has always been so good about going to bed, and that night she'd just been trying to tell us she didn't feel well!

The upside to this story is that since then we really haven't had many issues at bedtime at all. There have been a couple nights where she gets out of bed, and all it takes is us opening the door and she races back to the bed, gets in, puts her head on the pillow and pretends to snore. She is such a good girl! I am working harder to understand what she is trying to tell me now, and it has been so interesting to see her independence grow. I think she feels like such a big girl now. Every day she is saying one or two more words. It is really cool to see.