This weekend, we took a page from the Nanny 911 playbook and engineered a special visit for Violet from the Pacifier Fairy.
For those of you unfamiliar with this figure, the Pacifier Fairy is a (pretty ingenious) way to get your kid to give up their pacifiers [cold turkey] while still letting the kid believe it's THEIR idea to give them up. Believe me, this totally beats having them resent you for taking away and withholding their precious pacifier from them!
On Saturday, Dee told Violet that we were going to have her give her pacifiers to the Pacifier Fairy, who was going to take them and give them to little babies who needed them. And for being such a big girl, the Pacifier Fairy was going to bring Violet a special present. Violet is a pretty skeptical and stubborn child, and we really didn't think she was going to go for this, but she seemed to latch on to the idea that she could help some babies by giving them her pacifiers.
Dee helped Violet put all of her pacifiers into a manila envelope, and they sealed the envelope and addressed it to the Pacifier Fairy. Then they walked out to the mailbox and put the envelope in the mailbox for the Pacifier Fairy to come pick up (Dee had to explain to the mailman what they were doing while she was out there). We snuck out later to get the envelope without Violet knowing, of course, and waited until that evening to tell her that the Pacifier Fairy had come and left her a present.
Violet's present(s) were two stuffed animals from the Disney Store, a Mickey and a Goofy. She absolutely adores the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cartoon, and her reaction to getting these was sooo cute. She just stood there with this huge grin on her face, giggling and turning the animals over and over, pointing out their tails, their ears, their teeth, their eyes, etc.
Violet did ask for her "paci" a couple times that day, but every time we reminded her that she gave them to the Pacifier Fairy to give to little babies, she seemed pretty content to let it go. We did have a rough spot when she woke up in the middle of the night and cried pretty inconsolably, but Dee stayed strong and just sat by her bed and comforted her for about the 15 minutes it took her to cry it out and go back to sleep. Sunday, she asked for a paci again a couple of times, but again was dissuaded when we reminded her of the Pacifier Fairy.
Ideally, you shouldn't even have had to get to the point where you need to implement the Pacifier Fairy, but if you're like my wife and I, and it sometimes seemed like the pacifier was the only thing helping us to keep our sanity, you might find yourself with an almost-three-year-old who is using it as a crutch way too often. We're already promising ourselves we'll do better with Rosalie, but for now, thank goodness for the Pacifier Fairy!!!!
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