Jailbreak!

It happened one night. Anna got particulary mad at me when I left her room at bedtime. She screamed like a crazy woman. I mean, really screamed. She ran up and down in her crib banging on the railings, screaming. Screaming!

I don't like to let her scream, so I went in and out a few times and this did not make things better. So I decided to let her scream to tire herself out. I went downstairs. I got a phone call, answered it, and sat down on the couch.

At some point, I look up.
Anna is standing in front of the TV. Downstairs. In the living room. As in: not in her room, much less her crib.

She's finally done it. She got out.
We got her back to bed and to sleep, eventually.

4AM that morning, I am in bed and for some reason start to wake up.
Through the slits between my eyelids I see Anna. And Winnie. Looking at right at me. Right next to me. I try to process how this is possible, and what would Dr. Spock do? or Dr. Sears? or even Oprah? ... It's way to early. She gets in our bed. Terrible precedent, I know.

The next morning (uh, yeah, roughly 2 hours later) we wake up. Anna and I go out to the living room and as I pass the stairs I see the basket that she keeps her socks in sitting on the third step from the bottom. Hmnnn. I look up and see a stray sock lying on a step above. I go into her room and she has organized her socks with her clothes for tomorrow, all neatly laid out.

Evidently she woke up.
Climbed out of the crib.
Had the presence of mind to grab her sock basket and take out the ones she wanted for tomorrow and leave those in her room, neatly, on top of her outfit for tomorrow.
Decided to take the rest of the socks (in the basket) downstairs with her. I guess she carried the basket with one hand. I know she carried Winnie with the other. Quickly doing the math I realize that left no appendages available to hang onto a railing with. But as she got to the bottom of the stairs, she evidently had the good sense to drop the basket and be safe. For three steps. Great.

So now Anna sleeps on a mattress on the floor of her room. I lay down next to her until she falls asleep. Which doesn't take very long. Since, of course, she no longer takes naps. The first night that we did this, Anna was on the mattress, I was on the floor next to her, we had just talked about the whole crib/big girl bed thing and she looked at me and said:

So this means now I can walk?

I tried to assure her that this absolutely means she can not walk around, especially downstairs, but I'm not sure it sunk in. At any rate, the gate at the top of the stairs in now latched every night. And I've only had one instance of nearly breaking my neck because I forget that it is there.

And of course we are getting a big girl bed for her. Despite Anna's ardent pleas, we did not get her a fishy bed. We got her a nice white bed (the "Savannah Day Bed"), to which we will affix fishie themed "Wallies" that we hope will make the bed look and feel to her just as if she was sleeping in a fish. The bed should be here next week, and she will be disappointed that it is not the bunk bed that she picked out of the pottery barn kids catalog. I said "bunk bed? who is going to sleep in the other bunk?" The answer was quick: "Jack."

Oh well. Maybe a white bed with a trundle and fishies stuck to it will appease the girl who wanted the bunk bed. In the shape of two fishes. If not, she'll have to deal.

But we did, of course, get fishie sheets.