big-boy milestone alert!

For a while Elian's been talking about taking the guard rail off his bed. I've been a little hesitant because 1.) the boy is a total wiggle-worm in his sleep. There have many times when I've gone in there and his head has been dangling off the opposite end of his bed -- the only small portion of his bed not covered with his guard rail. and 2.) C'mon, if we take it off, that means he's getting even BIGGER. Can't we stop his growth by leaving his guard rail on (kind of like foot-binding Chinese women)?

So a few nights ago we took it off and put my body pillow that I used during my pregnancy on the floor to catch any possible falls and hooray! so far, so good. Now he's asking that we remove the pillow. Guess someone's too cool to have their Mama's body pillow on the floor.

The child can be so odd. He suffers pretty extreme anxiety about the tear in his blanket or the possible ruin of his beloved Ugli doll, so I wasn't sure how he was going to take the whole guard rail thing. I had learned while I was reading about when's the right time to remove the guard rail (because of his crazy sleep movement) that children can have a very hard time with its removal. It's sort of like a security blanket for some. But he's like Meh, get rid of it! So now my baby's sleeping without a net.

Sniff. He's getting so big.