No more pacifier for Michael!

A major milestone with Michael this weekend. We finally ditched the pacifier! I really thought it was going to be awful and traumatic for him [AND by extention mom and dad], but "fier" (what he called it) was looking really bad lately as he had started biting it and it was full of holes. Chelsea and I were seriously worried that it would fall apart some night and he would choke on it. Anyway we have talked with him about "fier" needing to go away soon. Well on Saturday after our nap we brought "fier" outside and daddy dug a hole in one of the flower beds and Michael put "fier" in. We covered it up and then he ran and got his watering can and gave the spot a good soak.

That night he had a short fit about "fier" being gone but I reminded him that we had "planted" "fier" and that in the morning there would be a surprise in the garden for him. That afternoon I had gone and found a small shapely Vaccinium bush and cut it down and brought it back to the house. That night we stripped the emerging leaves off of most of the little branches and stuck gumdrops and tiny marshmallows on them. In the morning before he got up I "planted" the bush where we had buried "fier". After breakfast we went outside to discover our gumdrop bush that grew out of "fier". I pulled up the "bush" and he happily ate the marshmallows and gumdrops while carrying it around the yard.


Here we are finding the "gumdrop bush"


Here it looks like he is trying to figure out how this grew out of "fier"

He has asked for "fier" a couple more times at nap and bedtime (the only times he was still allowed to have "fier"), but seems OK with "fier's" absence when I remind him that we planted it and about the gumdrop tree. Now we probably just have to keep an eye on Sawyer's pacifier in case it ends up out in the garden too!

-R