Last Friday, this urge took shape in a decision of epic magnitude: this coming would be The Weekend. A Götterdämmerung. Twilight of the Pacifier.
(Don't you love it that "my" reforming energies are directed at the life-alteration of my poor son?)
Griffin has never been really pacifier-dependent and we had long since banished its use to naptime and bedtime only. Even so, I really hated to rock the boat because he's been such a champion sleeper. If it weren't that he's lately taken to chewing them to shreds, I'd probably let him keep the pacifiers until middle school at least. But I got so paranoid that he'd bite off a piece and choke to death in his sleep, I knew The End had come.
So just before the Friday afternoon nap, I snipped it. Just sliced off the end of the nipple. Naptime routine proceeded as usual until Griffin picked the pacifier off the mattress, popped it into his mouth and ... did a double take.
He pulled the pappy out, stared at it for a moment, stuck his finger into the hole at the end and then handed it back to me. His expression said: "Fix that, will ya?"
Mama says: "No pappy? Okay. Night-night." Lights go off. Door shuts.
Cue the crying.
One hour later, he finally stopped crying and went to sleep. For the last six days, we've endured moderate to mild periods of pre-sleep crying, lessening in intensity and shortening in length each time, until today's morning nap when ... [crickets chirping] NOTHING. Blissful silence and sleep.
The pappy is gone, he's sleeping and I'm celebrating.
Labels: Griffin
