Milestone

It’s official.

My two and twenty-three-month-old is finally off the paci.  And he’s thrilled.

Please don’t judge me – I know he was old to still use one.  But both Frances and George were addicted to those suckers, which admittedly lent to good leverage (“if you don’t stop fussing I am going to take your paci away!”) and quieter car rides.  After infanthood, we limited the pacis to bedtime and car seats; but they were still a huge part of our lives.  I did have the good sense with Frances to make the paci cut-off at three-years-old.  I figured that by that age, you could reason with them more.  With her, it worked like a charm.  She was so happy to be turning three, she didn’t mind giving up her beloved paci in exchange for the status of “big” girl.  With George, however, as he’s been inching his way closer and closer to three-years-old, I have been increasingly more terrified.  As you may have garnered from this blog, George is just slightly less reasonable than Frances.  Couple that with an even greater addiction to his paci and you have a recipe for some serious bedtime power struggles.

But, as if to save us from such a fate, George started chewing through his pacis at night (frightening thought for a parent, though).  He never chewed the plastic nipple completely off, but just enough to render the paci unsafe and uncomforting.  Within a month, he chewed through every paci we had in the house and, well, that was that.

So far, he’s been coping pretty well with his missing appendage (although, wouldn’t you know it that as I am writing this very sentence I had to go upstairs and fuss at George for crying in the middle of naptime.  It is amazing how kids can sense just when you’re starting to feel confident about your ability to parent well only to prove you otherwise).  If things continue to go this well, our little family may just reached yet another milestone—no more reasons to shop at Babies R Us.

Darn.

Happy September 1st, everyone!