Bye bye Bah-bahs

Bah – bahs – def. a MAM pacifier (brand is important)

We are Bah-bah free in our house. Almost two and a half years from it’s first suck to the last we have made it through.

I will first start and say I eat my words entirely. I judged parents whose toddlers had pacifiers past their first birthday. I thought to myself, “I will never allow MY child to have a pacifier that late, absolutely ridiculous!”. Who the heck did I think I was? Obviously someone who had no idea the joy that a pacifier could bring to a child.

I’ll blame it on Maine, we didn’t get rid of the bah bah until recently. My talented little girl became so talented with the darn thing and developed some pretty impressive parlor tricks of being able to flip her bah bah in her mouth or stick her tongue out underneath her bah bah.

When I got home from Maine I knew it was time. I read countless resources on weaning from the pacifier until I came up with my own plan of action. I had heard Santa would gladly accept bah bahs so he could redistribute them to the babies that needed them. So I began plans on preparing her for the exchange.

Several weeks before I began talking about it with her in a conversation like this:

“Madeleine, I heard Santa needs more bah bahs for the babies, and he told me that if you would give him all of your bah bahs, he would bring you lots of toys for Christmas”.

She surprisingly really took to this conversation and sometimes she would tell me out of the blue, “I give… all of my bah bahs to…  Santa Claus and he bring me my toys!”. (I really wish I had the sound byte of this because it is so melodic – a complete crescendo on the ‘all of my bah bahs’ – it had my family finding ways in the conversation to get her to say it).

We kept with the preparation, I would tell her repeatedly to enjoy her bah bahs because we would visit Santa soon to give him your bah bahs so he can give them to the little babies.

At last the day came for us to visit Santa Claus. I had to wait until Andrew made it home from Maine because I did not have the will power to do it all by myself. Luckily visits with Santa on Monday at our historic courthouse are 1. free and 2. completely laid back and unchaotic – not to mention Santa looks the absolute best.

Getting ready to leave the day of, we ran around the house collecting bah bahs and Madeleine got in one last suck.

yes, that is hideous peach walls with drywall mud in the background, baby steps – I’m just thrilled my kitchen finally got done (my dh won’t let me touch it without him)

I ran in ahead of Andrew and Madeleine to announce to Santa of our special mission and made arrangements for an early Christmas surprise for the bah bahs. Everything was set and ready to go. I was anxious to see how she would react considering she had been so excited talking about it and seeing pictures of Santa Claus – I was really hoping we would have no tears.

Well, it wasn’t in the stars for us that day. As soon as she saw him she was terrified. Andrew tried first to get her to sit with him and give him her bah bahs, but she was having none of that!

So we switched off with me having no more luck then Andrew until I said the magic words, “Maybe Santa Claus has something for you if you give him your bah bahs.”.

Santa was grateful to have the bah bahs collected in a plastic bag! Ha! Just kidding – total speculation on my part.

Poor, cute Santa was trying so hard calling her by name and being so gentle with her, but as soon as he brought out that Cinderella doll it was all love and smiles and the bah bah exchange was made – SUCCESS!

She was killing me, now giving Santa high fives and hugs, that little stinker! We gave one final hug to Santa and waved goodbye.

She was jumping for joy over her new Cinderella doll! She also got an extra special lunch at her favorite lunch spot – Chick-fil-a.

The first nap was a little difficult – she had to figure out how to go to sleep without her bah bahs. The first night was hard – about an hour of fussing – but never asking for her bah bahs she was just having a hard time falling asleep without it. Andrew has wanted many times to give them back, and I’ve all but body barricaded myself from allowing that to happen. That would make it near impossible to ever get her weaned, and she really can do this!

To toot my own horn (cause I never do ;) the best part of giving the bah bahs to Santa and getting something in return made it very easy for her to transition. She knew she had physically given her bah bahs away so she couldn’t ask for more – she knew Santa had them (and thank goodness Santa kinda goes in hibernation after Christmas). The couple of times she did ask we could remind her that Santa gave her Cinderella and that he had already given her bah bahs to the babies.

It’s now been a few weeks, and I think we can finally say we’ve settled into our now bah bah free world. She found one the other day and came into the kitchen with it in her mouth, crisis adverted, I exclaimed, “Oh, no! We need to send that one to Santa Claus right away”. Not a fuss came from her. She’s getting so grown up (boo hoo!).

Next stop… potty training.