Growing up

This past week, our kids seem to be growing up much too quickly in my eyes.  We have had a week of milestones around here.  On Tuesday night, I took Emma's paci away.  For good.  Honestly, I think it was as hard on me as it was on her.  It started out as a punishment of sorts.  For a long while now, she has only been allowed paci in bed.  There are the few moments when she will try and sneak it out, or when she gets in trouble will gladly retreat to her room, just so she can get in bed where paci is allowed.  Tuesday night, after we had tucked in, twice, she continued to get out of bed (with paci in her mouth), for supposed "potty" trips, and then sneaking into her sister's room and getting her out of bed as well.  I gave her another chance and told her if she got up again, I was taking paci away.  Well, my spunky little one decided to test me.  It probably wasn't a good night for her to do that.  My nerves and patience were shot already.  She got up again, so I took paci and put her back in her room screaming.  Her daddy had gone to the gym, so I got to listen to her scream for 45 minutes for him and paci.  I dug my heels in and stood my ground though.  Finally she wore herself out and went to sleep.  When Marc got home, I told him what had transpired in his absence.  About 20 minutes later, she woke up crying.  I went in thinking, I'm probably going to cave and give it back to her, just not sure I'm ready to fight this battle.  I decided to give her one shot though to see if she was REALLY distraught, so I stuck my head in her room and told her it was time to quiet down and go to sleep.  She immediately stopped crying and rolled back over.  I went back to bed ready for the real crying to start.  I got paci in my hand ready to cave in and give it back at the first sign of a cry.  10 minutes later, she started crying again asking for something, so I went in the hallway to listen.  "I want my milk."  Well, she wasn't even asking for paci, this MUST be a good sign.  I went in and sat on her bed.  "I want my milk, Mommy," she whined.  I wiped her tears and said, it was the middle of the night and we couldn't have milk because we might have an accident then.  She gave me a look that just about broke my heart, but turned over and stopped crying.  I went back in my room and told Marc I wasn't ready for this, if she gave up paci, we had nothing left of our "baby."  Then I laid down and my mind started racing, she's asking for her milk, so she just wants something to suck on to soothe her, "what if she starts sucking her thumb, Marc?!"  "Go give her the paci then, I'd rather break her of that than have to try the thumb thing, obviously that hasn't worked so well for us" (Mary Mac is a thumb sucker).  I sat there debating with myself.  What do I do?  Millions of parents have broken their children of the paci, it can't be that hard.  Why am I making it?  I went back in her room once again armed with paci, only to find her sound asleep.  I took the paci back with me to my room and put it on my nightstand and reluctantly went to sleep. 
The next morning I woke up and came downstairs, Marc was already down there with the kids.  I asked if Emma had gotten up again, sure that I had just slept through.  He said no, and that when she got up he asked her if she had slept without her paci and she looked at him like she had lost her best friend and said, "Mommy took it away."  Ugh.  Knife through the heart.  But when she walked in the kitchen, she was my normal happy girl, so we made a big deal about being a "big girl" with her and she seemed fine. 
That afternoon came and I dreaded nap time.  Sure enough, I put her down and she asked for paci.  I told her that she was a big girl and didn't need it.  She cried for 20 minutes.  I texted Marc and said that I felt like people put way too much weight in taking paci's away.  I saw no reason why she couldn't go off to college with it.  But she went to sleep, albeit a shorter nap than normal, it was still enough.  That night we had another crying fit, I let her sit with me in bed for a little while past bedtime so we could cuddle and talk.  I asked her if she thought she deserved a prize for being such a big girl and giving up paci, of course she said "yes!"  (I know, bad mommy bribing her).  I asked what she would get and she answered with "a goo-goo-gah-gah baby."  I had no idea what that was, or if she even knew, but I gave her a promise that if she went to bed for the rest of the week without crying, we would go and find a goo-goo-gah-gah baby this weekend.  I went and tucked her in without another sound. 
The next day at nap, went a little smoother.  I just had to remind her of our deal and she went down without a problem.  Fast-forward to Saturday and she was back to taking her regular length 2-2 1/2 hour naps, and was going down with nary a word about paci.  And yes, we did pick out a goo-goo-gah-gah baby at Target that morning which prompted another child of ours to want to grow up a little more.

Upon seeing her baby sister get a prize for being such a big girl, jealousy kicked in with Mary McLean, and she was ready to prove she was a big girl too.  She proclaimed that she was ready to stop sucking her thumb.  This isn't the first time she has proclaimed such a thing though, so we kind of took it lightly.  The problem with MM is that while I have noticed she falls asleep most of the time now without sucking her thumb, while she is asleep, the thumb gets into her mouth, so most of the time, she has no idea she's done it unless one of us is in her room while she's sleeping and notices it.  We've tried the bitter nail polish before, it didn't work.  So while we were at Target and she was making all these big proclomations, we bought some first aid tape so we could tape her thumb up.  Our thought is that maybe it will be a reminder to her in the middle of the night.  Last night was the first night we tried it and she woke up this morning with it still on, but we have no idea if it worked because we didn't sleep with her.  We also forgot to tape back up at naptime this afternoon, so we need to do better about remembering to do that.  I'll keep you posted on how this goes.  If any of you have any ideas on how to break a kid of thumb sucking, I'm all ears.

Which brings me to our last child.  Andrew is 7 years old and has never lost a tooth.  He is really sensitive about it too as most of his friends have lost 4 or 5 teeth already.  It started last year when his friends started losing their baby teeth.  He kept asking me when he would lose his.  I told him I didn't know, but that I lost my teeth later than most of my friends too, I was in 1st grade.  His first day of school this year he came home and said, "I'm in 1st grade now, when will I lose a tooth?"  Poor thing is dying to be like his friends.  While I understand his frustration, I can't help thinking how happy I am that he hasn't lost his teeth yet.  I love that we haven't had any toothless school pictures, all his pictures have his perfect little baby teeth in them, not those big awkward permanent teeth that seem too large for the kid's mouth.  And, if he still has baby teeth, then he's still for lack of better words, a "baby" to me.  I'm not ready for him to grow up, I like the innocence of his childhood.  Well, Andrew has a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon.  At his last appointment the dentist told us that he would be surprised if Andrew hadn't lost a tooth when he came back to seem him in 6 months because his permanent teeth were right there on his xrays.  We've been trying to wiggle teeth every so often since then and they have seemed cemented in there.  On a whim tonight, I asked to look in Andrew's mouth and sure enough right behind one of this bottom teeth, is the bud of a new tooth coming in, so I tested a tooth and it is slightly loose.  Boy was that kid excited!  He can't wait to get to school tomorrow and tell his teacher he has a loose tooth! 

I guess I knew all my kids would grow up eventually, but I'm a little selfish and wanted to keep them "babies" a while longer.  I know I will always consider them my "baby" but it's a little harder while looking at my first born with new teeth coming in and my little girl without a paci in her mouth.