Bye-Bye Paci!

 When Addison was about 6 months old we had a visit with her birth family and she received this piggy bank from her biological grandparents.  You can see, at the time it was really more of a chew toy.

Since then, it has sat on her dresser up high out of reach for the most part.  I would occasionally dump some pocket change in there.  Several months ago I started letting her put "monies" into piggy herself.  Usually it was just change from my purse or if there was any loose change lying around.  Most recently I've kept a jar of loose change handy and when Addison does a job for me (like feeding Allie) I'll let her take a couple of "monies" from the jar and put them in her piggy bank.  She's been very interested in opportunities to get money lately.  Not that she had any understanding of what the money was worth...
Yesterday at nap time I offered Addison 3 monies if she would leave her paci on the dresser next to piggy bank.  She seemed very interested until it came time to actually put paci down.  I didn't feel like pushing it so I let her just have it and no monies were exchanged.  Later on at bed time I casually mentioned this little story to David and before we knew it, we were actually following through with the deal, modified to 5 monies for a full night without paci.  We were committed now.  As soon as we closed her bedroom door we knew there was no going back or we would be sending the complete wrong message.  So we forged ahead.

It was a rough few hours with a couple of visits back in her room for another hug and a pep talk.  One time I went in and gave her an "advance" and let her put two monies in her piggy bank, leaving 3 more for the morning.  That made her pretty happy.  It satisfied her for a little while, but the tears came back before long.  In the end, I think she was asleep by about midnight and stayed there until about 8:30 this morning.  That wasn't too horrible....

So when she woke up this morning the first thing she asked for was more money for her piggy bank.  And we gladly obliged! Later this morning, Addison and I dumped the change from her bank and I counted out $15 of quarters and exchanged them for paper money at the First Bank of Mommy.  Then we put them in her doggy purse along with her paci and headed for the Disney Store.  I asked her on the way what she wanted to buy and she said, "More stuffs!"

After several trips around the store, she finally settled on a plush Daisy doll and we threw in a set of Minnie Mouse pajamas as well.  We'd already spoken to the sales ladies about our situation and they were very helpful and made a nice big deal of what a big girl Addison was.  First she got a princess sticker with her name on it.  Then she got a certificate stating her big accomplishment.  In addition to that she got a coloring page and a puzzle (which is too hard for her, but she loves it anyway.)

Lastly, they rang her purchase up and told her the amount that she owed, including the paci.  Proud mommy moment, I could hardly hold back the tears as I watched Addison pull the paci out of her purse and hand it over to the cashier.  Then she reached back in for her money and handed that to her as well.  She was quite excited when the nice lady gave more money back to her to put in her purse!

After the Disney Store I took Addison out for a celebratory lunch at Chick-fil-a and let her play in the play area for a while.  On our drive home she asked about her paci.  I reminded her that we don't have paci anymore (except the 4 or 5 that have been hidden away for a couple of weeks now, but don't tell her that!); we left it at the Disney Store.  She asked about it a couple more times before getting in bed for nap, but in all, went down for her nap rather smoothly.  Sleeping with Daisy instead of her paci.  I'm hoping that the physical act of giving her paci away to purchase a new friend will help her remember that even when she wants it really badly, we no longer have it.  We have Daisy instead.  We'll see.... Bedtime tonight will be telling. Wish us luck!