Transitions

Last weekend, Ben mastered the crib dismount. He also seemed to take the brunt of the stress of our transitions, declared a daddy strike, and attached himself to my hip.
It was a long week.
I think the best part of having a 23.99 month old is that we know that rough weeks are just that. Nothing more. It's not indicative of his personality or our parenting. It's not the "new normal." I remember in his infancy questioning each rough day, week, hour, whether I was seeing his true self. But I know the real Ben. And he's an all around happy little pill. No doubt about it.
Thankfully, this weekend more than made up for the rough week.
We stayed home. Together. For the majority of it.
Ben also helped Daddy build his big boy bed (a loaner from sympathetic friends of ours) on Friday night. I made it up and got it all ready. We made a big deal about the bed and it being such a big boy thing. And we left it at that. I worried that the bed was just one more transition for him to struggle through. Figured he'd tell us when he was ready for it.
So Ben slept in his crib Friday night.
And Saturday nap*.
Saturday night.
And then on Sunday afternoon, he asked to sleep in his big boy bed.
We happily encouraged him.
And after just 20 minutes of the jack-in-the-box bed routine, he slept soundly for almost 3 hours.
We celebrated the snot out of him when he awoke.
And Saturday bedtime? He asked for his stories "in big bed" and fell fast asleep without a peep.
It's almost as if he's trying to prove me wrong!

*Instead of the normal "mommy" wake up call, I heard "poop!" in the monitor. Went in to find him perched on top of the changing table. Still not sure how he made it out of the crib and onto the table without me hearing him. Maybe he has a future in stealth ops?!