Setting:  Ridiculously Large Vehicle.  Driving Home From Christmas.

Me:  "You know, she really isn't sleeping alone."

Beloved:  (removes headphones) "Eh?"

Me:  "Maybe we should just put her in the toddler bed now.  I mean, it can't get any worse. She hasn't slept through the night in eight days."

Beloved:  "Really?"

Me:  "What the hell?"

This is how important parenting decisions are made.

So we drove home, dropped off all our bags, rescued Sybil from the Pet Hotel and drove straight to Toys R Us, where we purchased the second-to-last white toddler bed available for the bargain-basement price of $70. 

Yesterday afternoon while I labored over a training manual, my beloved put together the bed, took apart the crib, put a latch on the closet door and installed a custom gate across her bedroom door.  The transformation is complete. Her room is now a little girl's room,  complete with bins of books and toys, stuffed animals, dolls and a few musical instruments.  Elmo takes up half the bed, but she doesn't care.  She luvs him.

Right before we went to pick her up, I foolishly typed in "transition to toddler bed night waking" in Google and spent about twenty minutes reading horror stories of children who Never Again Slept after getting the toddler bed. 

Me:  "Honey?  Do you think it's dumb that we just got rid of the crib without a good-bye ritual?  Should we have let her choose which to sleep in?  We didn't let her pick out sheets with characters on them!  What will we do?"

Beloved:  "Judas Priest.  You have been reading the Internet again, haven't you?"

Me:  (stunned silence)

Well, we went to Target anyway to see if she wanted to pick out something for her big-girl bed, but it was all ugly and picked over, so we ended up leaving with nothing but a pooh blanket that she doesn't even like.  However, she went to bed fine and slept until 4 a.m. - four hours later than she has been sleeping for the past week.  Apparently, once she was up and realized she could reach her toys, she still wanted to party, but I hope in time we can get past that.

I mean, how could you resist it?