The Paci Chronicles, Part 1

Back in March, when we took the kids to the dentist, Dr. Easy-On-The-Eyes told us that Miss M had to lose the paci. He told us that the deadline was when she turned two. I told Big J that he was more than welcome to get to work on Operation No More Paci at any time. Preferably while I was in Cali. In June. The week before Miss M turned two. He laughed at me. We are now 3 months post-deadline, and the kids went to the dentist again last month. And we got busted. By the dentist. Easy on the eyes, not so easy on the tender mommy heart. (BTW, I didn't choose him because he's easy on the eyes, that's just a pleasant bonus.) He was nice about it, but I felt guilty.

We never had to deal with paci issues with Mister J. When he was about eight weeks old, he quit taking the paci. That's another issue entirely. Equally as stressful but for different reasons. Mister J couldn't do anything but eat, sleep, cry, and poop when he gave up the paci. Guess which one of those he used to tell me he needed something? Being a freshly-minted mommy, I was still learning to decode cries. And he wouldn't take the paci. What's a mommy to do? But, I digress....

Recently, we decided to give Operation NMP a try. We started by simply pretending the paci was lost, and leaving Miss M tucked into bed while one of us went to "find" it. (Don't even start on me about the fact we were lying. To our baby. It hurt me more than it hurt her.) Sometimes she would fall asleep, sometimes she'd come looking for one of us to see if we found paci. Then we moved on to the pacis being "old and yuck" - the one we found behind the chest in the master bedroom defintely was! I even persuaded Miss M to toss that one in the trash. Then, Big J got hard core about it, and started telling Miss M that big girls don't use a paci and she had Kitty Cat (and other assorted loveys) to watch over her. It's been three days now, and no paci at nap or bedtime. Just Blanket, 4 loveys, and a minimum of 6 books. I have persevered, and not let her sweet little eyes sway me. Not even her sweet voice telling me, "I need my paci." She's even started asking for them by color. This is particularly noteworthy since she often pretends not to know her colors if I'm the one that's asking (she had me totally snowed for weeks and I worried that she might be colorblind or something!). If it's important enough to ask for by color, surely Mommy can be persuaded to join Miss M in the search for the long-lost, dirty paci - right? Nope.

I can't believe it is working - on her or on me. Knock wood. Now. Yes, you. NOW!

We have heard of all of the "Paci Fairy" and "Give them to the babies that need them" ploys. We just didn't feel that Miss M was developmentally ready to go along with them. But she understands when you can't find it. She understands if it's yucky. And so far, so good. So I'll keep sticking to the plan, thankful all the while that Big J's determination was the encouragement that I needed. 'Cause I'm a sucker when it comes to the kids. And they know it.

PS - Please vote in the poll! Upper left. Just for fun. More my fun than yours, I guess. Consider it practice for November. 39 days and counting!