Putting the Crib to Bed

Nine years ago Natalia and I walked into Baby Furniture Warehouse in Reading--an overwhelming, massive warehouse packed with rockers, beds, cribs, and strollers of every imaginable kind--picked out a simple cherry Pali crib from rows and rows and rows of options, paid, and left, with our sanity somehow still intact. A few months later Andres was born. With a few brief gaps, the crib has been occupied ever since.

That long streak is now ending. Last night, with Natalia and the kids visiting friends in Maine, I broke down our well-worn, well-loved Pali for the final time. Lucia is now nearly toilet-trained--and, as a result of this achievement, she is earning her prize, which is her sister's (and brother's before her) "big girl" bed.

No more crib. They do grow up.

Some of my co-workers asked whether it was a bittersweet moment. I hadn't thought of it that way. I was too busy enjoying the peace and quiet to get sentimental. It's not like Lucia is moving out of the house; she's just trading in her old bed for a newer one. What is there to get emotional about?

But once that seed of sentimentality was planted, I did begin to think about the amount of time that our three kids spent in that one piece of furniture. They spent a lot of their lives in there. It's where they took naps; it's where Andres' four monkeys, Celia's blanka, and Lucia's blanka all became family members. It's where we sleep trained them. It's where we put them when they had tantrums. It's where we had photoshoots, and sometimes, it was also where the dance party was, Andres, then Celia, then Lucia jumping up and down on the mattress, laughing and singing.

In the first days, when it was just Andres in there way back in 2007 (2007!), that crib looked so big. We would swaddle him and place him right in the middle, then put rolled-up blankets next to him so that he didn't roll over onto his stomach. It seemed like there was still acres of unfilled space around him. It also seemed hard to believe, in those early days, that he would ever grow big enough to graduate to his own bed.

But of course he did. In fact, he hastened his own graduation by learning how to climb out of his crib, and scared Natalia and I to death one night by knocking on the inside of his own bedroom door. Nobody really expects to hear a knock like that. He was in his own big boy bed soon afterwards.

It looked a lot smaller last night. Lucia had made the crib her own--stickers were everywhere, and so were dolls, and blankets, and books, and various trinkets that she likes to sleep with. Sure, it's best practice to limit crib-dwellers to a pillow and single blanket. But this is Lucia. Some mornings I could barely find her in there, as she was so well covered up by numerous Olaf dolls and Care Bears. Not only does she need a new bed because she is older, but she also needs more space. How could this crib have ever seemed small?

Nine years, three kids. It's been a good run for that Pali. It served us well. And maybe I am a tad nostalgic to see it go.

But the flipside? Lucia's almost, almost, almost out of diapers. And I'm not shedding a single tear about that.