Slowly … cautiously … carefully … I open the front door.  Coming home from work.  What is on the other side … I just don’t know!

Like a fine wine, cigar, or comic book collection … Little Lady has spent the last two years, her only two years, perfecting the art of being a paci connoisseur.  And this week, Wife and I have ripped them away like duct tape on the tuchus of a grizzly bear.  It hasn’t been pretty, many trials have been and are still being had.

As I cross the threshold, the only question on my mind is … “how did nap time go?”

Honestly I feel terrible.  I feel terrible for Little Lady, I feel terrible for Wife, and sometimes quite selfishly I feel terrible for myself.  I don’t like seeing my little girl scream for seeming hours on end.  Knowing she just isn’t comfortable without that little key to her relaxation.  She used to sit in her crib surrounded by two, three, four, maybe more pacis, organized to her liking.  If one seemed out of place, she’d carefully and lovingly pick it up and adjust it just slightly, just to make it right.  Sometimes she’d link them together for entertainment and use two or three at the same time.

This girl was an expert!

But now it is time to move on.

Wife, Little Lady and I have been on this road going on five nights.  Some days are better than others, some nights worse.  We’ve tried some of the techniques like clipping parts of the paci off, but once any modifications are done that were not by her own hand, Little Lady wants nothing to do with them.  It along with all her stuffed animals, blankets, and pants … end up on the floor outside her crib.

It is an ongoing journey for sure.  But we are sticking with it.  We haven’t cheated and gave in … yet.  Good thing Wife is strong, or at this point I think I’d be planning on Photoshopping out the paci for high school graduation photos.

I just keep telling myself, though, like my mindset on a lot of the interesting adventures we have taken so far, so many people/parents have gone through this before … so why not us as well?

But I will say and leave with this, I do think she has matured in actions and talking so much in just the few days the paci has been gone.

Love that Little Lady, screams, chuckles, stares, smiles, kisses, hugs and all!