Paci's Go Bye Bye

For months now, I have been dreading the day I would have to take away Callie's pacifiers, but I knew I needed to do it soon. She has loved pacifiers from the day she was born, and they have been lifesavers again and again, but she's too old for them now.

A while back, we tried cutting down her paci usage to just bedtime or in the car, but after we moved to Texas, she became even more attached. I decided we'd just have to get rid of them cold turkey. I dreaded the day because I was afraid of her reaction and thought she would cry for hours at night before going to sleep without a paci. The past week or so I've been telling her that her paci's were going to go bye bye soon and I've been struggling with how/when to take them away. A surge of courage came over me yesterday afternoon, so I asked Callie, "Should we go take your paci's out to the trash so the trash truck can take them bye bye?" She said, "yeah!" (I must admit, I was excited that I thought of having her do it instead of me sneaking behind her back to dispose of them.) So we both excitedly walked out to the dumpster, Callie threw her paci's in, and we bid them farewell forever. 

She seemed perfectly fine with it. Until that night. We got home from the youth activity and started getting ready for bed. It was so sad seeing the look on her face when she realized what our trip to the dumpster actually meant. She started bawling for her paci. I tried to console her as I continued getting her ready for bed, but she just kept crying. Partway through our prayer, Callie finally calmed down, but then I made a bad mistake. I prayed that Callie would be "calmed and pacified." She instantly started crying "paci-fi-er!!" I felt so dumb. I left her room and she cried for a while, but not too long before falling asleep. She cried for it today for her nap, but once again fell asleep quickly. 

All in all she's handling it better than I expected. Although she did try to replace it with her baby doll's pacifier today, so I had to take that away.

I feel like such a mean Mommy taking away something she loves so much! But I guess it's for the best.