Paci Puppy!

Somehow my crazy husband convinced me that it was time to take away the Paci from Issie on Christmas Eve. Mama is not ready! The logic behind it, according to Brad, is Mama will never be ready (true) and he will be home for 4 days so this would be the time to do it together. So I surrendered, very reluctantly, I surrendered. The reality of the matter is she is not terribly addicted to it, not like Kadie was. She only has it for nap and bedtime, but it makes putting her down simple, and I am not ready for crying and hysteria (are you ever really ready for that?). But it makes sense to do it sooner and while we still have her in a crib so she has time to figure out how to put herself to sleep without it before we move her to a bed in Kadie's room. So we did it. Nap was non existant on Christmas eve, even though she watched us throw away the paci's she still just cried and cried. She does this pathetic thing when she is distraught... she calls "Paci.... Paci..... Where arrrrreeee yooouuu?" It is so sad and so cute at the same time. Needless to say after 2 hours of wailing we got her up to go to Christmas eve service and then brought her home and she finally passed out for a little bit then totally crashed to go down for the night. Christmas day was worse.. she was hysterical at nap time. And we had company, all of whom were Grandparents and totally understood but still after a few hours of that we pulled her out of her crib. Again she crashed a bedtime with only a few minutes of tears. I am thinking, I am totally not ready to sacrifice nap time. So today we took her to Build a Bear as we did with Kadie to make a Paci Bear. Kadie was older and had a better understanding but we still thought maybe if we replaced the paci with a paci bear it would eventually help.

Daddy walking the girls through the mall, so cute. Kadie is totally grieving the loss of Issie's paci with her. "It's like it was yesterday for her", she tells me. "I just cannot bear to think about it" she says.

Issie has no idea what this is all about but everyone seems excited so she is excited too.

She immediately picked a puppy. So it will be Paci Puppy. This will actually make things less confusing between Kadie's Paci Bear and Issie's Paci Puppy. Again with the cute little half smile.

Before the stuffing.

Well, she saw the paci for the first time in 2 rough days and she had to have one last suck. Brad could barely pull it out of her mouth and she was very upset that we stuck it in that dog.

But now she is over it and fluffing her up.

Such a big girl with her Paci Puppy. Hopefully she won't tear it apart in her crib searching for the Paci. We did have a minor victory today. She actually surrendered for her nap after an hour and a half of screaming and indignation. She slept 2 hours and would have slept longer if we let her. Yipee! Then only 20 min of crying at bedtime. Progress! I am hoping by the end of the week she is back to her normal routine. Please pray for that, for both her and me.