pappy detox...

pappy=paci...in will speak;)

03.30.10 - the dreaded day. for everyone. i think for me as much as will! {disclaimer: this is a very detailed post, so you can skip reading now if it's too much! this is really for me...in case i ever have to fight this battle again!!!} anyway...we'd been telling him for a month or two that 3 year olds are big boys who don't use paci's anymore...and that the day after his birthday would be d-day. i talked to lots of friends who'd already traveled this road and got lots of ideas on exactly how to go about it...but my friend charity's method was the ultimate winner;) which was to tie all his paci's to balloons and send them up to the babies in heaven that didn't have any paci's and needed them. i thought this would be the best way for him...to see for himself that they were actually gone...and in a way, teach a lesson about giving to those in need:) so we talked this whole scenario up to him for a few weeks and explained it all. and if you'd ask him if he was ready to give up his paci's yet, his reply was always "maybe later"...ha.

so the day came. ek and i picked him up from MDO and we headed to pick up the balloons. as you can see from the pics, he thought they were hilarious floating around the car. we got home and had a "pappy hunt" to gather any and all stray paci's. under the bed...behind the dresser...his backpack. we attached a note to Jesus...{as if Jesus didn't already know}. he was all about it...pumped about the whole thing and ready to "do this". by this time it was around 4:00. my plan was to wait until after warren got home as backup for what was sure to be a meltdown of some sort. this was not will's plan. and while he was so excited about it, i decided i'd better put my game face on and take my chances. so we went out to the front yard and released the precious pappies. i watched and waited. and nothing. you would've thought it was an everyday occurrence. he wanted to play baseball and to know when daddy would be home. whew.

hindsight is 20/20 and looking back, i probably should have done pappy detox several months before emma kate was born. but i was just so torn. here he loves something that we gave him and it has now become such a security thing...and to take it away before his world got turned upside down with a new sibling just seemed sort of cruel to me. i've heard people say that kids regress with stuff like that, too...especially if ek had been a paci baby. i didn't want him stealing hers! anyway. up until ek's arrival, he was only using the paci's for nap and bedtime. after her, he got uber attached to it...wanted it at various times throughout the day and for sure whenever he was upset. he doesn't really have a blanket or lovie that he's attached to...just his "pappy". it was also the trigger for "the sleeve" at sleep times. and would settle him down pretty fast. so...i knew bedtime could get really ugly. daddy has also been on will bedtime duty since emma kate. but i put him to bed this night, and to my amazement, it went pretty well. he told me "want my pappy, momma" a bunch of times...and barely cried. and had a harder time than usual falling asleep. but no meltdown. the first two nights without it weren't bad. the next few nights were TERRIBLE, but that was mostly because he came home from school with pink eye on thursday and was also running fever. can i just say that sick+pappy detox=hell?!! he was waking up all hours of the night (not just his usual once or twice a night...geez!) so after we survived that, it got much better...the hard part was when he would wake up in the night and didn't have his paci to help soothe him back to sleep. it took about two weeks for him to stop mentioning his pappy altogether. i had to do lots of reminding about how he was a big boy and that the babies needed those paci's worse than he did and how sweet it was of him to share, etc., but i was overall pretty amazed at how well he handled it. he still adds "my pappies and the babies in heaven" to our prayers...precious.

in april, he started staying for nap time at MDO, and has done great without it there. and a sidenote; in mid-march, he started wearing his big boy underwear to school and has done WONDERFUL! only one accident so far...yay!

he did find one paci on his work bench a day or two after we sent the rest to heaven. he just showed it to me and said "found a pappy, momma". i was surprised it didn't go straight to his mouth, but he willingly handed it over to me, no big deal. when he asked about it later, i told him i trashed shipped it to heaven:) one last thing...a funny story i want to remember:) at Easter lunch, we were pretty much done but still at the table and will props his chin in his hand and says to gram and gramps: "my pappies are all gone". it was kind of "woe is me", but in a matter of fact way. like he just wanted to share what he'd been going through and get that off his chest. pitiful and precious at the same time! we are so proud of you, big boy!