Dear Lily,
Today is going to be a rough day, though you don’t know it yet.
For the last few months you’ve been pretty spoiled. In order to have you sleep soundly, you’ve been sleeping with us most of the night. This is the case because when you wake up alone, you have a tendancy to cry, wail and scream until you’re blue in the face.
We hate to hear this, as we hate it when you are upset in any way. It tears away at us and makes us want to run and pick you up and hug you until you shut up calm down. Personally, I also like waking up and seeing that you are there, breathing and happy.
However…It’s getting to be time that you sleep in your own bed. If we don’t start this now, by the time you are out of your crib, you will just get up, walk to our room and demand that we let you into bed with us. If we refuse at that point, you may start gathering weapons to convince us with.
This is behavior that just won’t do I’m afraid. So, on the advice of our pediatrician, we are going to start the hellish process of letting you cry it out. But please remember, we love you. You are a persistent little lady, so I’m sure you won’t give up easily. I fully expect 2+ hours of wailing before you put yourself to sleep. Your mom may have to leave the house for this, and I don’t really blame her.
I seem to be able to shut off the reaction to run and hug you a little bit easier. While your mom rocks back and forth on the bed, I am able to watch tv. Perhaps it’s something to do with my growing up in a big family, I had to learn how to shut things out. But it certainly won’t be easy, so please go easy on me.
So, please do enjoy the day, and tire yourself out so we can make this process easier on all of us. 
It’s going to be a long weekend.
Love, Dad