I <PACIFY> NJ: The End of An Era in the Bink of an Eye

On Friday we — hopefully — entered a new and exciting phase of parenting: the pacifier-free life.

I say “hopefully” because as I put my work badge into my backpack last night, I found two more pieces of pernicious paraphernalia I’ve failed to properly secure starring back at me. Have you ever felt two rubber nipples glare right through your soul on a crowded commuter train? Bone-chilling.

If I forgot about two pacifiers in my backpack, where else could Margo discover a binky bindle??

We’ve been prepping Margo for this moment for months, reminding her that at the end of summer the Pacifier Fairy is coming to relieve her of her bedtime companions and replace them with a purple bike and matching helmet.

Imagine telling this kid that one day she’d sleep pacifier free.

We were even able to narrowly avoid a scolding from the pediatric dentist at Margo’s first appointment when we told her the plan and Margo nodded solemnly as she confirmed she’d be ready to do what needed to be done to — hopefully — save her parents thousands of dollars on future orthodontic work (it’s amazing how much of parenting involves desperately hoping while the universe and older parents laugh.)

One last dance with Mary Jane before she gave up her addiction for good.

At first, game day went off without a hitch. Margo eagerly tossed her pacifiers into a sack and then marched them into the shed we told her the fairy would visit while she was at school.

Margo placing her pacifiers in the shed for the fairy. I wanted to be sure to have this all on camera to remind her she was a willing participant in this plan.

After daycare, she was so excited to check the shed, we had to delay dinner, and then she took to her balance bike like a boss.

It was Tara’s brilliant idea to put the bike in the same sack after we took the pacifiers out.

Margo rocked her Pacifier Fairy-provided bike and matching helmet all weekend.

Alas, the joy ride came to a screeching halt about an hour later, when she declared she wanted to go to bed early, ran into her room, and immediately started screaming bloody murder. Worried she had somehow physically injured herself, I found her desperately digging around her stuffies searching in vain for a forgotten loosie (thankfully she hasn’t thought to check my backpack yet.)

Tara and I eventually got her down after some pretty intense tag teaming and the rest of the night was calm… crisis averted? Fat chance… at 5am on Saturday I was awakened by stern repeated commands: “Daddy come… Daddy… come! Daddy? Daddy come!” When that didn’t work she switched up tactics: “Charlie! Come here! Charlie, Charlie!” Over and over and over, with occasional time signature and key changes, “Chaaaaaarlie come!”

Normally bed time doesn’t require sitting on the floor next to the crib, so our distraught toddler can do Frozen search and finds until she finally declares, “I’m happy again now!”

Her tone mostly sounded annoyed & bossy, which made the whole situation mostly amusing and a lot less heartbreaking. When I finally got her at 6, she immediately said, “I tried calling daddy, but you wouldn’t come so I tried saying Charlie instead!”

On Sunday morning after getting her back to sleep in a rocking chair when the pain of being pacifier-less at the lake proved too much, I became 100% convinced I was hearing mice in the kitchen… it was just the ice maker, sleep deprived paranoid dad brain is back!

We’re still not quite out of the woods. Bed time took a tough turn last night when she discovered Bluey’s dad had something intriguing in his mouth on the cover of the book we were reading, “Daddy, that’s not a pacifier is it?”

What kind of nut job puts something so triggering on their book covers??

After briefly considering lying, I realized that if she’s old enough to self soothe, she’s old enough to hit with the truth. It may have extended bed time by an hour, but she’ll be better for it in the long run.

Margo developed a strict three pacifier system: one for the mouth and one for each hand. In hindsight, maybe we should have realized it was time to move on when she could palm all three in one hand.

In the end the past few days of rough bed times and extra early wake ups aren’t even the worst symptom of depacification. The toughest part is realizing how quickly Margo grew from a little blob who needed my help even keeping that binky in her mouth, to being a confident little human who figures out how to get herself to sleep without our help… even if one of her coping mechanisms is yelling at us by first name.

I swear this was just yesterday. Where does the time go??

Tara and I have been coping by sending each other old pics and videos. When Margo was born, we threw a bunch of options in her bassinet to see what would stick.

The green ones ended up being her favorites.

Never mess with this kid, whether she has a pacifier or not!

My Song of the Day: Rill Rill by Sleigh Bells