Paci-Free 2013!!!!!!

Well..... you are looking at the face of a BIG paci-free boy!  I know, amazing, right?  Many of you (like me), I'm sure, thought you would never see the day! 

Obviously, it was time.  It was time a LOOONG time ago!  But we've been putting it off, and putting it off, not sure how Jeremiah was going to react to this huge change in his life.

To understand the magnitude of this, let's just take a walk down Paci Memory Lane, shall we?

Day 1.  BFFs!

Bunny with Paci.

Big Boy Paci with Uncle Ben.

Linus with Paci and blankie.

BFFs.

Christmas Card with Paci.

Upside-Down Paci

1 Year Old with Paci.

Ralphie with Paci.

Cool dude with Paci.

Flying on the airplane with Paci.

Stuck in a sink with Paci.

 

 

2 years old with Paci.

Bath time with Paci.

New lawn mower with Paci.

Locked in a cage with Paci.

Doggy with Paci.

With Josie and Upside-Down Paci.

Happy 2012 with Paci.

With Paci-stealing Grandpa.

Inside a car tire with Paci.

Looking at fish with Paci.

So, as you can see, Paci (a variety of different Paci's, actually) has been a big part of our lives!  I mean, Jeremiah's life.  So this is a HUGE deal!  He has been Paci-free now for almost 24 hours and he is doing so well! 

Now, how did we go about this?  Did the Paci-fairy come?  Did he go to Target and exchange it for a toy?  NOPE.  It's "lost."  That's it!  Actually, he has been paci-free at daycare for a few months, and that was how it went there, too.  Paci was lost (like, it really could not be found), and he did just fine taking a nap and going about his day without it.  So, once Paci was found, Michelle just quietly sent it home with us and he was none the wiser. :)  Of course, Mommy and Daddy have been the ones holding up the process of J becoming Paci-free at home.  I have no idea why, really!  But slowly I have been "breaking" the Paci's J had in his bed (I cut the tips off).  When J would find one, he would say, "Oh no!  It's broken!" and then go throw it away.  So then he was finally down to just 1 Paci, and last night he was looking for it.  I quick grabbed it and put it in my pocket and from then on, it has been "lost."  I have no idea what made me choose yesterday as the day to do this, but whatever.  Adam didn't know what got into me when I kept telling J that the Paci was lost.... I promised that next time I'll make sure to clue him in to my crazy ideas! :)  If I had known I was going to choose that moment, I definitely would have let him know!

So last night around bath time J was having a really hard time accepting the fact that his paci was "lost" and he cried and cried and kept saying, "Can you find it Mommy?  Can you please find it?"  It took all of my effort NOT to say, "Sure... Look!  I found it stuck way behind the mugs in the kitchen cabinet!"  I felt so bad for him, because he didn't even know it was coming (neither did we, really)!  But he did go to bed okay without it, only waking up once, and he went back to sleep when I rubbed his back.  And then this morning when he woke up he asked Adam to help him find it, and then kind of pouted a bit when he learned that it was still lost.  But he hasn't really mentioned it at all the rest of the day, and he is currently napping just fine without it.

Am I jinxing it?  Maybe.  But seeing how well J has done without it in the past 24 hours, I know that Adam and I will stick to our guns and leave the paci hidden in the cabinet.  And now J can move on to bigger and better "Big Boy" things-- perhaps potty-training or a big boy bed (yes, he's still in a crib.  He has never tried to climb out, so we are going by the motto "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!)?  We'll see.  I just have to say that I am pleasantly surprised with how well this has gone.  We are SO PROUD of our big boy!!!!! :)

No room in a football helmet for Paci! :)