First Sleep Over

For close to a year now, Caroline has been begging to go on a sleep over. I remember being quite old before I tackled this particular milestone but somehow, like so many things, sleep overs start earlier in this day in age. Between her frequent night terrors and incredibly early rising, we have said no to her requests again and again. Recently, she had started to feel like a "bad person" because she couldn't have sleep overs. The unfairness of her friends participating in such fun events had translated into a reflection of herself as a person.

Thanks to the wonderful investigative work of our sleep specialist, we are finally getting to the bottom of some truly biological reasons for Caroline's poor night time sleep. As a result, we have actually been able to help her in definitive ways and the night terrors are basically gone. While this has gotten us closer to sleep overs, I was still hesitant to subject any of our friends to our wake up time. One good friend, however, decided that it would be only one morning out of their lives and she was up for the challenge.

Last night was the night. The bags were packed and off we went. On the way home from dropping Caroline at her friend's house, Katherine looked sadly at Caroline's empty car seat and I cried. I couldn't tell if I was crying because I was afraid she wouldn't be able to do it and would then feel worse about herself or if I was afraid she would be able to do and that would mean that our baby was really growing up.

This morning, those sad tears became happy tears when I heard Caroline's voice over the phone. She had done it and the confidence and bliss in her voice was beautiful.

Our baby is really growing up and it is an amazing thing to watch....