Almost 2…

On Sunday, a huge milestone occurred at our house.

Jack Henry threw away his pacifiers.

Not willingly, of course.  But in our house, 2 years old = no more pacis.  Sidenote 1: at age 1, we go to a pacifiers-are-for-bedtime-or-when-you’re-sick policy, so we were only taking them away from his naptime/bedtime. We went cold turkey with Bennett at age 2 and I remember a couple of rough weeks (think no naps, hard time falling asleep at night, but no actual crying for or looking for the pacifier), and then things were fine again. Luke didn’t take a paci past 3 months old or so, so we didn’t have to do this with him.

I’ve been talking with Jack Henry about this for several weeks now, as his second birthday is rapidly approaching (speaking of which, we might be buying him a new carseat for his birthday…won’t be he thrilled?  I’m half kidding.).  I started with the “you’re almost 2, and 2 is a big boy, and pacis are for babies” talk.  He liked this at first, and started holding up two fingers, which is so cute.  Then, in the last 10 days or so, I’d put him in his bed, give him the reminder that pretty soon we were going to throw the pacis away, and he would hold up 1 finger and smile at me, I think telling me he just wanted to be 1!  Smarty pants…

Anyway, the day came.  Sunday morning he got up, I took my dad’s advice and cut the tips off the ends of the pacifiers and gave him all four that I could find (I later found two more and disposed of them, lest I cave in a weak moment and give it back).  He tried to suck on each of them, and then sat them up on the counter.  We told him that since they were broken, he might as well just throw them in the trash, and he did.  We celebrated with oatmeal chocolate chip cookies before breakfast, and lots of “we’re so proud of you, you’re a big boy” talk.

Since then, things have really gone pretty well, considering this was his primary soothing item (he does have a dog, blanket and lovey that he sleeps with, too). His nap on Sunday and bedtime that night went pretty smoothly; Monday’s nap was OK, too. Then last night I think he really started missing it. He kept shouting my name over and over, and I went in several times to remind him about the big boy party, and that the pacis were all gone. At one point, he convinced me to get him out of his crib so he could check under his bed and in the drawer, where the extras were always kept! It took him a long time to fall asleep last night – maybe an hour, when typically, it’s a half hour and he just lays in there chatting to himself – but tonight was a little better, and I anticipate that tomorrow will be even easier.

Here’s the photo documentation, of course! I love that he had to try each one of them out, just to be sure.

Sidenote 2: because wordpress does not have the capability (or, I do not have the capability via wordpress, one or the other, but it’s probably me) to post SOME pictures as gallery and SOME pictures as big pictures, you have to see the first three sweet baby pictures with the other grouping. Grrr.

Goodbye, old friend. You’ve seen us through some rough times, and I’m probably going to miss you (and your magical abilities) as much as he is.