The Paci Fairy (aka: She Devil)

The Paci Fairy visited our house today.  There was a lot of tears.  All of which were mine.  But here is the full story:

We have been talking about taking away Owen's pacis for about a year now.  I took him to the dentist right after his 2nd birthday expecting a big lecture from her about how he was too old for one, but to my surprise - she said they recommend children stop using them by age three.  Three???  That gave me a whole additional year to procrastinate the take away!

So, that was September.  When November came, that seemed too close to the big arrival of his little brother and all the books and online advice say not to make any major changes to routine right before or after a new baby arrives.  So that took care of November, December, January, and February.  March came and Steve went back to work - so we decided that would be the only big change for that month.  April came and that's when Steve and I began seriously discussing the end of the pacis. 

So to start the process, I ordered some children's books on the Paci Fairy subject in the hopes of easing Owen into the idea via bedtime stories (in the end, he never read the one book that I bought and the other book never shipped.) 

Next, we had to come up with a majorly awesome gift that the Paci Fairy could bring that would be worth exchanging the pacis.  We decided that a good present would be a blue garbage truck.  He has been coveting one for months since the real garbage trucks that come every Tuesday are blue.  He only has green and orange ones and those just don't cut the mustard when you are reenacting the whole "garbage day" scene with the correct color garbage cans, but the wrong color truck.  I searched the stores and online to find a blue garbage truck and can I just say, they are hard to find!  I ended up special ordering one from Walmart and had it shipped to a local store and today I received the email that it arrived.

So, I had in my mind that this Paci Fairy thing would be a very orchestrated event where Owen would leave his pacis somewhere for her and then magically the pacis would disappear and the super, awesome gift would be there instead.  However, this is how it went down today...

We spend the morning at the park having a grand ol' time.  Got home and started discussing what we were going to do with the afternoon.  I suggested to Steve that he go pick up the garbage truck at the store so we could think about doing the Paci Fairy thing sometime this month.  He suggested we do it today.  I suggested we should probably discuss the idea with Owen since we haven't yet to see how interested or freaked out he would be at the idea.  He agreed.

So I broached the subject with Owen. 

Me:  "Hey, Bubba?  Do you know that there is a Paci Fairy?  She told me that if you give her all of your pacis, she would bring you a BLUE garbage truck!  What do you think?"

Owen:  "Get garbage truck now?"

Me:  "Well, I think she is going to come tomorrow."

Owen:  "No, get garbage truck now?  Go to the store and get garbage truck?" (He knows that whenever we don't have something he wants - we say we have to go to the store.)

Me:  "Uh, well...uh, ummm, uh, well - ok.  I think she said once she has your pacis, she would leave the truck at the store for you."

So we found a shoe box and ran around the house gathering all his pacis and putting them in the box.  Owen put every one in the box himself.  Then we ran outside to put the box under a tree.  Then Owen and Steve went to Walmart to pick up the present the Paci Fairy left for Owen at Customer Service.  Only I forgot to email Steve the confirmation email, so he went to the wrong Walmart and had to go to two stores to get it.  That Paci Fairy sure is a pain in the rear.  You'd think she'd know where to leave the dang present, but no...she makes you run all over town trying to find it.  Anyway, while they were gone - I took a few minutes to cry, but then I dashed around the house taking pictures of the event and making a thank you note from the P.F. on the computer (which, he never read but it's still going in the baby book) which I left in the place of the paci box since we had no gift to leave there.  Seemed weird to have it disappear with nothing left in it's place?  But, like I said, Owen didn't notice the note, didn't want to go get the note when I pointed it out, didn't want to read it when I brought it in, so it was pretty much pointless except for my need to have it all make sense somehow.

Owen rode the whole way home with his big blue garbage truck in his lap and never let go of it the rest of the day.  He asked about his pacis at bedtime and when we said we didn't have any, he asked a few more times - a little whiny - but never cried and never freaked out. 

So in the end, it wasn't the vision I had for the moment we said goodbye to pacis forever.  But, maybe this way was better.  The disorganization and franticness of it all kept it from becoming bigger than necessary.  However, I was not prepared to never see my baby with his precious paci again.  And I couldn't bring myself to throw them away.  They are still in my closet, in the box, with his paci breath all over them.