Coming clean

We have a dirty little secret that I am almost embarrassed to admit here. But it is cause for celebration and the only way to celebrate is to tell the secret. Well here goes. Madelyn still had a pacifier. Oh yes, her beloved paci, one that she has had since she was an infant, has been the magic tool in her nap time and bedtime routine. Perhaps it was why she has always been such a gem of a sleeper.

It's not that we had not tired to take it away. We did. Many times. The paci fairy came. We put them in an envelope and tried to mail them to babies. We just took them away and endure the sleepless nights of weeping and screaming as she mourned like she had lost a precious love one. We tried to bribe her. We snipped the ends to make it less desirable(thus the "brokey" was born and added to the mix!) But nothing worked. Until last week.

Remember my post last Tuesday. Actually I did not get into many details of the day but it was a bad one and she was big time on my list. As a punishment, I had to take something she really valued and I knew the thing she holds the most high is her paci. So I told her no pacis for her nap. Fine. She did it. She was going to cry herself to sleep anyway.

So when she woke up from her nap sans paci she declared it was time to get her dollhouse (One of the bribes we offered in exchange for the paci.) No, no, no my pint size friend, there was no paci as a punishment not then to get a huge reward. So I told her now that she knows she can sleep without the paci if she continues she can get the dollhouse.

She has no looked back since. I can say it loud and proud, my daughter is paci-free! Please never mind the fact that she will be 4 in a few months! OMG. But I was a thumbsucker (the secrets just keep rolling here!) so I guess the whole paci thing I just feared she may go to the thumb and then what...you can't take that away! So I am happy she has done just what we had hoped all along, given it up on her own terms. I was really afraid of going to her first dentist appt. next month and admitting she still has a pacifier.

So that very bottom of the barrel day last week had a really positive outcome.