No Pacifier

The time has come!! Kalin is spending his first night, practically since birth, without a pacifier! Hooray!!! I am SOOOOOO excited. This has been a long time coming and, quite frankly, I've been nervous about it. I had no idea if it would turn into a big ordeal with tears and tantrums or if he would just accept it. So far, he's just accepted it. I've been warning him for months that this time was going to come but it wasn't until this week that I knew the time was very close at hand.

Let me explain how I knew this.

About 6 months ago he was going to bed with a total of 4 pacifiers and I thought, "This is ridiculous! He's 2 now and I really want to get him off of these. How are we going to wean him off of them if he's used to having such a large supply!". The answer: Slowly. Just like he was weaned off of nursing over a 6 month period we weaned him off of his pacifiers. When the first one broke I said, "I'm not replacing it!". So he was down to 3. Within a week, a second one broke and once again I refused to replace it. And he was down to two. The last two hung on for about 5 months. This past week "green ba (he calls them ba's and I don't know why)" broke leaving just one behind, "blue ba". I told him all week that once "blue ba" broke there would be no more. A couple of days ago I noticed that a hole was starting to form in "blue ba" and I actually got scared. "Am I really ready for this?" Well, ready or not, I knew that it was necessary. As it happened, his first time sleeping without the pacifier came about by accident. We were visiting my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's church today and decided to hang with them at their house for the afternoon. This meant that Kalin would have to go down for a nap at their house and I hadn't packed his pacifier! I told Kasey, "If this nap goes well for him without his pacifier then I'm not going to give it to him tonight either." He didn't even ask for it when we put him down for his nap!! This was really odd for him because whenever we would mention nap time or bedtime he would immediately ask for his "ba". So when we got home tonight I hid his pacifier so he wouldn't see it and he didn't ask for it until the very end of our bedtime routine. He was already in bed all covered up and surrounded by his stuffed animals and he said "Ba?". And I responded in a cheery and matter-of-fact voice, "Ba is broken. Remember how you slept without it during your nap today? Here, how about if you hug Russell (the name that Kasey gave the sheep) instead." Then we prayed, kissed him and left the room. There was no crying and no tantrums and I am so relieved.

This may seem like a silly thing to devote such a long post to when a simple, "Kalin doesn't use pacifiers anymore." would have sufficed. But this is actually a big milestone in my thinking and I am so happy that it has gone smoothly. I had three very specific goals for Kalin this year:

1. Learn to jump - He accomplished that one shortly after his second birthday.

2. Get rid of pacifiers - I can now cross that one off my list (and many people who know me know how much I love to cross things off of lists!)

3. Potty-training - in progress.