Wish us luck

Amy went to bed tonight without her pacifier.

Perhaps you didn't hear me correctly. Amy went to bed tonight without her pacifier.

If you are at all acquainted with my three-year-old daughter, you know that she has never, ever, EVER been without her "mimi" for more than 5 minutes. She had one in her mouth within minutes of her birth and has been going strong ever since. When she gets into the car, she makes sure that she has at least two of them with her, just in case one drops out of her mouth while we're driving (a common occurrence when you're trying to talk with a piece of plastic in your mouth). She removes it to eat and drink, but that's about it. When she wants to have a conversation with you, she puts it to the side of her mouth like a cigar, and mumbles around it. And when we put her to bed at night, she has one pacifier in her mouth, and another in her hand. This prevents frantic middle-of-the-night searches when one drops to the floor and rolls under the bed.

When she turned 3 last month, we had a long talk about giving up the pacifier. "When I'm three and a half I'll do it", she responded. We haven't pushed the issue, although it's becoming more and more of an embarrassment when we are out and about. She looks a little foolish, and I think she's finally beginning to realize it.

"I don't need my mimi anymore", she informed me this afternoon. "I think I'll just throw it in the trash".

Oh, my. Cold turkey is not always the easiest way to go, but I didn't want to pass up this opportunity. So, together we put the pacifier into the kitchen trash can, which is stored in the cabinet under the sink, with a child-proof lock on the door. A few minutes later she brought me three more pacifiers, which she had found lying around the house. Those went into the trash as well. Over the course of the afternoon we threw away 9 pacifiers, all at her request. We had one small melt-down right before dinner when she just could not handle the withdrawal anymore, but a movie and a cup of juice temporarily solved the craving.

And then came bedtime. She cried. She told Dan she couldn't sleep. She begged him to pull the pacifiers out of the trash.

And then Dan came up with a brilliant, on-the-spot solution. He bribed her.

"If you go to sleep without the mimi, I'll get you a happy-meal for dinner tomorrow".

And that was it. Off she went, and I haven't heard another peep from her.

But between you and me, I found another pacifier in the bathroom after she went to bed. And I hid it away. Just in case.