Three whole days. That's how long Abby went without a pacifier.
Chip and I have been trying to break Abby of her pacifier "addiction" since her first birthday. My idea was to only give her a paci at naptime and at bedtime, and during the rest of the day I would "hide" them from her. Despite our best efforts, Abby always found the pacifiers that were either in the kitchen drawer or tucked under the blanket in her crib.
Well, as many of you know, we went to Orlando last week. I packed all four of Abby's pacis. We wound up throwing two of those away by day two of our trip. By day four, the other two went missing. Any time Abby threw a tantrum she would yell for her papi (her pronunciation of paci). Trust me, if I had had a paci, I would have shoved it in her mouth - lovingly, of course! Anyway, I figured losing the pacis was the easiest way to break her addiction.
It turns out the other two pacis weren't really gone forever. One fell underneath the hotel bed and the other was underneath the passenger seat in our rental car. Both of them took a bath in the dishwasher, and I put them safely back in the diaper bag.
Things were going smoothly - Abby made it three days without her paci, proof that she can in fact live without them - until our flight back home. We arrived at the airport at 5:30 a.m. Chip and I were dragging, but Abby had her usual never-ending supply of energy. I tried to keep her entertained by walking around to all the gates and showing her the planes. Abby was so excited. She kept yelling, "Ka-kane! Ka-kane!" That's Abby's way of saying "airplane," by the way. We even got a pilot to wave at us.
After an hour and a half of walking around, it was finally our turn to board the plane. By this time Abby was almost fit to be tied. She didn't want to be held, she wanted to run around. I tried corralling her, but as she was running away from me she fell and hit her head on the ground. And when I say "hit," I mean she HIT the floor - everyone around us heard the thump. Needless to say Abby let out a blood curdling scream, and everyone around us was giving us the "What kind of parents are you?" and the "Please don't sit next to me with that kid!" look.
My mind raced, "How do I get her to be quiet?" I went into panic mode, and the first thing I thought of was the paci tucked into the diaper bag. I told Chip to give her the paci, and when he did, Abby immediately calmed down. What magic. Although the paci powers defeated my attempts at "curing" Abby, as Chip put it, "It was necessary this time."
Since we've been home Abby's been asking for her "papi." I'm trying to keep it away from her. As you can tell, we've got a long road ahead. The paci has a strong hold on my daughter...wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment