On July 24 we said goodbye to the paci. It was a day that none of us were really looking forward to. I wasn't sure who was going to have a harder time with it, me or Maddie. Seeing that it's been 19 days since we took them away and I've finally had three good nights in a row of Maddie not screaming her head off when we put her down at night, I'd say she probably had a little harder time with it then I did.
I didn't want to have to take the paci away. I knew the time had come since she was now two. I was able to push it off a little bit because I didn't want to do it before we went on vacation. Then I was able to push it back one more week because I wanted Chris to be at home when we finally did it so he could partake in the festivities. I just didn't want that day to come. I wanted to hold onto that little bit of baby that I had left. Because after the pacifier was gone, that was it. No more Baby Maddie. And that was a little hard to deal with since my youngest was really growing out of the baby stage.
In case you don't already know, Maddie LOVES (or I guess I should say LOVED) her paci. It was truly her security blanket. We would only let her have it at nap time or when she went to bed at night. Chris and I were seriously concerned what was going to happen when we did take them away.
This was Maddie on the morning of her second birthday. See what I mean about loving her paci!
We knew this wasn't going to be as easy when we took them away from Ella. She had one or two rough nights and she was over it. Maddie, aka - the fighter, was going to be a completely different story. I believe it was my sister-in-law who told me that when she took the pacifier away from her daughter, she told her this story that the paci fairy was going to come one night and take away all of her pacis and give them to little babies. So, we went with it. Let me tell you, the girls ate it up. Seriously, they were so excited and fascinated about this paci fairy coming into our house. Ella kept asking how the fairy was going to get in the house and into Maddie's room. She was obsessed. You would have thought Santa was coming.
The first night wasn't so bad since she went to bed with her paci. The nights that followed were a nightmare. As soon as we started our bedtime routine, she would start saying "Mommy, I miss you" over and over. After putting her in her crib and shutting the door at night was when the screaming began. The first three nights she screamed for at least an hour and a half. To top it off, she would wake up multiple times during the night, screaming and yelling for her paci. She was screaming so much that she nearly lost her voice. Gradually, the screaming subsided. Then we moved on to yelling for certain people. She would take turns yelling for me, Chris and Ella. "Mommy - come back" "Mommy, I have potty"
So here we are, 2 1/2 weeks later and I can't even express how happy I am to be here. That first week was hard. Really hard. It's beyond difficult to hear your baby screaming for you and you know you can't go in there because they need to work this out for themselves. I think she's finally got it figured out now. I hope I'm not jinxing anything by saying this! Although she has traded in her yelling at night to yelling "Daddy - wake up!" in the morning. That's okay. I can definitely handle that.
A paci lover from the beginning. Maddie on the day after she was born.
As I was looking at pictures, I came across this one. Definitely one of my favorites of the girls. It was taken in March 2009. Maddie is 9 months and Ella is almost 2 1/2 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment