Big girl bed

 

This week, I've been out of the house running around Paris trying to find all the bits and pieces to finish off Ella's new room. We got rid of her toddler bed and now she is officially in a Big Girl Bed, with a roll out bed underneath for when her friends come to stay (I have been BESEIGED by little girls begging for an invite every night when I go to collect Ella at Centre de Loisirs. Talk about buyers' remorse...)

I took this photo the first night, when Ella was soooo excited to get into bed that she was practically shaking. She loves her new bed. Loves it! But when I tucked her in and saw how little she looked it just about made me cry. I couldn't help but think about the first night, when she was just brand-new, and we tried to lay her in her crib but she looked so tiny and lost in that great big crib. Its such a shock to see the time pass like that. And to remember how it felt that night, wondering if we were awful parents, 'abandoning' our little baby in that room, in that great big bed, leaving her all alone. I now, 5 years later, she was cuddling up to me, whispering to me about how much she loved her new bed. When I see her so happy I realize all those worries about doing the right thing were so silly. We did everything great and now we have this gorgeous, happy, sweet little girl. I don't think that I could even imagine making it to this point. Just getting through the night, at the point, seemed like an insurmountable hurdle.

I want to say that this just gives me some perspective on things. But in fact, it doesn't really. That day feels like it was yesterday and I am in exactly the same spot, but at the same time, everything is so different and I feel a million miles from that moment. I can't believe that there was ever a time when we didn't have the girls taking up every minute of our day and every space in our heads.