Poor Paci

Trauma tonight for WubbaNub, Celeste's pacifier: Being a bit cheeky at bedtime, Celeste threw Wub to the floor twice as we were getting ready for bed, so I asked her if she still needed her paci. She said, "No." So Evelin cut the pacifier part of WubbaNub free from the dog, and handed Wub back to her. Celeste looked a bit gobsmacked and then said, "Cut, passy?"

To back things up, Celeste has always been more of a pacifier girl than Quinn. Quinn will take one every now and then, but she's not dependent like Celeste was. For the most part, the pacifier for Celeste was only in bed, and when she reached a certain age (I don't remember how long ago) the pacifier went away and there was only WubbaNub.

Over the last week, Evelin and I started talking about when even Wub would go away. WubbaNub is only approved for kids without teeth, and on the way back from Montreat, we noticed that the pacifier part of Wub was starting to tear.

We tried just having it disappear, but allowing it to return if Celeste asked for it. She started asking often. I tried talking with her some about suttetræ, the Danish pacifier trees.^* I wasn't sure of the details, but I told her that when she was ready we could send her paci off to Denmark to be placed on a suttetræ. That kind of made her a little defensive and apprehensive, but we did come to an agreement that not all big girls need pacifiers and that while Celeste may need one now, she knows she doesn't need it forever.

Since Celeste wasn't cottoning to the idea of giving up Wub, we went ahead and ordered a new one to replace the tearing one.

Fast forward to tonight. Celeste was pretty sad about the de-pacified Wub. She first threw the dog down, then kept trying to hide it. Eventually, she started looking at the stuffed animal — laughing at the yellow foot pads, wagging the tail, feeling the ears, and then getting to the nub of the pacifier stem. That made her sad again, and she tossed it aside.

We talked a bit more about it all, and Celeste said she didn't need Wub, so I put her to bed and she seemed happy enough. After a while, however, we could hear her normal putting-herself-to-sleep chatter shifting to "Passy. Cut. No." and then just "Passy. Passy. Passy." So ... she is now enjoying the new WubbaNub — Evelin said Celeste was really happy to see the new Wub — and sleeping soundly.

^*Actually, I wonder if the Arboretum, Brookside Gardens, or even the National Zoo would be willing/interested in creating a suttetræ ...

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