Goodbye old friends, goodbye.

Ahhh, one of the glorious moments of parenthood is the pleasure of taking something away from your child that has been a security since birth. There is nothing more precious than that moment when you quietly ask your child for said object and then they, with absolute pleasure, reply, "sure mommy, while your at it, would you like me to donate all my toys to unfortunate children?" and return to life as they know it with no turmoil or screaming or crying whatsoever.

Ha. Welcome to the real world.

We gave up the pacifiers last week. We have been in our new house for a month now, and Madi had no trouble adjusting to her new room, so they were no longer needed. We had tried this before about 7 months ago (we tried the "lets build a pacifier bear" and the "they're gone, get over it" method) and after the nights of endless crying, decided to wait just a little longer. We were also potty training at the time and decided not to try both at once. Well, potty training was done 6 months ago. And.... we never quite took up the challenge again. So, I just decided to tell Madi that Thursday was the day. Wednesday night I informed her to enjoy her last time sleeping with the pacis. And then explained that they were going to be sent to Jesus in heaven for all the babies who need pacis. She was completely fine with this. No qualms whatsoever. (She didn't really understand what was happening, but that's ok.) Anyway, so Thursday morning we head tp Publix to pick up a few things, among them being three balloons. The balloons were going to be our method of delivery.

We get home and pull out the pacis (we were only delivering 3, but we all know there are more than that around the house). We had a small goodbye ceremony. Madi gave them each kisses (and I saw her sneak them into her mouth a couple of times for good measure).




(Side note: gotta love those blue eyes!)

And then, once they were properly "goodbyed," we strapped them in for departure. Madi helped me tie each paci to its matching balloon. ("Colors have to go together, Mama")



We then took the balloons outside, and without much fuss, let them go.
((DISCLAIMER: I don't know what I was thinking. NO your pacis will not go into the air tied to the balloon. Obviously, the paci is too heavy and weighs the balloon down. So, while your daughter is holding the balloons toward the middle of the string, with a quick slight of hand, grab the pacis snip them off and stow them in your pocket right as she lets go. And with any luck, the sun will be in her eyes and she won't be able to see that the pacis aren't really tied to the end of the balloon. Goodness.))



There they go...(not!)... Madi's dear little friends.

And she was a little sad and confused.



BUT. The sun was in her eyes. :)




So, we went inside and continued with life as we knew it. Before long, we began to discuss the arrival of naptime, and Madi said, "I need my pacis." I calmly reminded her of their current location. And she said, "Well, I need some more!" And it began. Unfortunately for me (haha, not.), my sister was watching Madi during naptime because i had a prior engagement. I really did completely forget I wasn't going to be there. So needless to say, day one consisted of no nap and crying for about an hour before she fell asleep that night.

When I was giving myself a peptalk that evening and telling myself we would get through this, I completely expected it to take about a week before all was well. However, I didn't give Madi enough credit. By day 2, she was over the idea of pacifiers. She went down for her nap and eventually bed time, like she had been doing it paci free all her life. It's a miracle!!

And we've been paci free ever since. (She still occasionally asks for them, but doesn't mind when I remind her they are gone.)

So, pacifiers, whichever dump you now reside in, I bid you adieu.

Goodbye old friends. We had some good times. And you saved me more times than I can count. But, good riddance.

the end.