A Milestone at the Ripe Ol' Age of 4y1m!

It's been a weekend of a few firsts in our house, but none as big as the one that happened tonight.

Tate is sound asleep, downstairs in his room.

In his big boy Polar Express bed.

In his big boy train room.

He has been so excited for this moment asking a couple of times a week when will it be time to sleep downstairs in his train room?

Of course he's always quick to say that I'll be sleeping down there too, not upstairs.  And I reassure him that yes I will sleep with him for a while. But I do always say that one day "Mommy will sleep upstairs and you'll be downstairs, and it will be all right.  You can come find me whenever you need me."

So tonight we took the plunge!  I gave him a bath upstairs, brushed his teeth upstairs and then we lugged his hippo, his Sue-Y bear, his Eyeore (how do you spell that???), his Pluto and his huge puppy, the CD player, the huge air purifier and his Thomas pillow downstairs.  (Don't ask me why I didn't move some of this stuff down earlier!)

I laid down with him after we read two stories...books he chose from his new train wall!  He was so very excited!  Then we laid down.  He tossed and turned in excitement for several minutes then finally settled down and fell asleep within about 20 minutes or so.

And I came on back upstairs.

I'm still so unsure this was the right move for us.  Not that he doesn't need his own room, but where I've put him.  I have a townhouse, and when I had it built 10 years ago I had the third bedroom on the third floor 'removed.'  What I mean is the house had a floor plan;  I talked with the builder and discussed having the living room on the second floor having 18 foot ceilings which would require the bedroom above it to not be in my floor plan.  He was completely onboard, and I saved $20,000.

Never once imagining I'd have a child in this house.

Fast forward to 2009.

I have a child.  I figured he would sleep in his crib in my room for the first couple of months, then I would move him downstairs.  Easy Peasy.

Fast forward to 2013.

Said child is still sleeping in my room.  Heck...he's been in my bed with me since February 2013.

And I love having him there.  We've bed-shared off and on since he was 6 days old.   When he would wake up as an older infant I often would put him in bed with me.  Around 12 or 13 months of age he was having a really hard time falling asleep in his crib, so I would put him to sleep in bed, then move him to his crib when I went to bed (Surprisingly he didn't wake and rarely woke in the middle of the night to move back to my bed, but it was fine when he did).  Whenever we traveled we slept together and transitioning back to the crib was never a problem.  I don't know why when we returned from Canada earlier this year that he ended up in bed with me, but it's been fine.  It's been great actually.  I love having him so close to me at night...we see each other so little during the week.

My dilemma was where to put him.  Do I put him on the third floor...which translated into giving him my bedroom.  My beautiful feminine bedroom?  Or do I put him in the bedroom on the first floor which I had had painted a gorgeous blue while pregnant with him intending to make it his nursery.

My concerns for the third floor were mainly worrying about him walking down the stairs to find me in the dark in the middle of the night.  Also the third floor overlooks the second floor with wrought iron railings.  Tate loves to climb and he's actually tried to scale the railings a bit, so that scared me like crazy.  My concerns for the first floor were just that...it's the first floor.  I didn't want my child on the first floor.  Also I needed to get my locks changed to double dead bolt because he's learned to unlock them...I don't worry he'll leave...I worry he'll open the door when looking for me (as he did once a few weeks ago) and our cat will escape.  There's a gate around the entire perimeter of our house, but Vincent can get under it.  Our alarm is always, always set to instant, so I'd know immediately if Tate opened the door, but Vinnie would get out before I could stop him.  So I had to have the locks changed.  So my worry then was Tate scaling the railings and falling down the stairs in the middle of the night.  I know he could fall climbing up the stairs too, but it seems that on hardwood stairs in socks (which he insists upon sleeping in) that down would be worse.  And let's be honest I want to stay in my lovely room.  So he's downstairs.

I went with a train theme, and worked on getting everything in place around his birthday this year.  He was thrilled with everything!  The sheets, the blanket on the wall, the rocking chair as his birthday present...the whole shebang.  Bryan and Mike moved the crib downstairs and converted it for me and we were in business.

Tate got new sheets!

He even slept with them the first night we had them!

I stalked Pinterest and UPS became my best friend and this was the finished product...

 

Birthday present from Mommy!

Detail on the chair!

Reading Nook!

Please pardon the box spring covered in plastic under
the bed.  I didn't realize a box spring was not
necessary for the converted double bed.  I am planning
on covering the box spring with a navy fitted sheet.
Now to find time to go shop for it!

This is 'his' bathroom.  He's not a fan of showers, so he bathes in my jacuzzi tub upstairs.

Tate has not slept in this house maybe only 7 times in his 4 years 1 month and 15 days.  In those 1499 days he has slept here he has been in my room with me.  I'm going to go upstairs to my room, turn on all the lights, turn on the tv, wash my face and brush my teeth while making all kinds of noise.

Then I'm going to tiptoe downstairs, straighten his covers, make sure he has his hippo, adjust the thermostat, kiss his sweet cheek and climb under those train sheets and sleep with my boy.