Will We Make It? Hope So.

So, after a morning of hunting pacifiers, we stuck them in a box that Pumpkin had decorated and left them under the tree in the front yard for the Pacifier Fairy to take to give to the little babies (I don’t know what babies – Pumpkin didn’t ask, The Princess didn’t ask — though The Princess DID ask, “What about all the GERMS on the paci?”). In the place of the box, the Paci Fairy would leave a gift for Pumpkin.

And that’s exactly what she did.

You see, at two years old, Pumpkin has been a devoted fan of her paci for all her life. I wanted to take it away when she turned one – but that is when she started teething. It seemed cruel of me to take it then when her mouth was in such pain. Instead, I limited its use to in the crib – for bed time only. Even with the limited use, though, her teeth were starting to be affected (in my opinion), and so I figured now would be the time to do it.

At her Well Child doctor’s appointment on Monday, I asked our Dr. B, our family doctor, what on earth to do. She then told me about the Pacifier Fairy. She said to get Pumpkin VERY involved in gathering the paci’s, and put them in a box that Pumpkin had decorated, leave the box out by a tree in the yard, and the Pacifier Fairy would take the box and leave a present for Pumpkin.

Ohhhhhhh-kay. Worth a shot.

So, we found a box. We decorated it with beaucoup stickers. And then left the box empty for a few days. Last night, I went shopping and found a cute fuzzy little CareBear to leave in its place, and today I decided to bite the bullet. We found four paci’s in the house (we had more, but I cut the tips off a few of them to discourage the use of them — and we tossed those). We put them in the box, and I told her to say goodbye to the pacifiers. She wailed, “Hellloooooooooooooooo paci!” I video’d her saying her goodbyes. I let her pop one in her mouth for a few final moments of paci comfort. And then we headed to the front yard to put the box under the tree.

Minutes later, while The Princess was visiting a friend, the Pacifier Fairy must have somehow swooped in and swapped the pacifiers for the gift. The Princess noticed it when she returned home. Pumpkin loved her CareBear – it even came with a DVD of a movie, and she thought that was neat. We muddled through lunch, we watched the movie, and then…

Naptime.

I put her in the crib and she instantly was asking for her pacifier, “Mommy! Pacipier! Me want pacipier!” Then screaming. Boy, did she scream. I cuddled her for a bit, put her back in the crib. Scream scream. When I went back the next time, she told me her mouth hurt – as she’d been biting her crib rails.

Oy.

After nearly an hour of yelling, she gestured towards the toddler bed that I had put together this morning (Thinking I could just tell her, “No paci’s in the big girl bed… that’s why they are going bye bye.”). She said she wanted her bed, so I pulled the mattress from the crib and put it on the bed. She cuddled up with her CareBear – and was out within minutes.

I’m not naive enough to think we won’t struggle at bedtime and have a few rough days… but I was reassured that she DID fall asleep.

Wish us luck.