Celebrating our big boy!

This past weekend we had Pizza Night at our house. But this wasn't any ordinary pizza night. No...this was celebrating Stefan being a BIG BOY! And boy did he love the party! Yes, Stefan now no longer uses a pacifier to go to sleep. Now, before you accuse me of being a horrible mother that let her son have a passy as a two year old, let me justify myself. For a long time now, he has only been allowed to have the passy to go to sleep. (Well, most of the time anyway, but let's not go there:-) )

For months we have been discussing the fact that we needed to pull the plug. Quite literally! But Mommy always had an excuse. Can't push any blame on Daddy here, because he was ready to do this months ago. I promise, it was always a really good excuse. But an excuse none the less. First it was moving, and then living in someone elses home, then moving again, then having a baby sister, then... You get the point. Good excuses, right? I'm not really sure why I kept coming up with excuses except that I have a really vivid imagination and expected this to be a traumatic event that would take us years to recover from. I envisioned a distraught boy crying for hours trying to go to sleep; a distraught Mommy crying because she was sick of the crying or because her baby was growing up (or any number of other emotions); and Daddy somewhere in the middle trying to keep said boy in his bed, and said Mommy from running in to rescue her poor child. I really don't know why I thought it would be like this. I'm not really a cryer, and once I've made up my mind about something I don't generally give in to easily (just ask Brian, ha!). But that is what I imagined. Call it pregnancy and post labor hormones maybe. (Please, give me some excuse.)

Anyway, so back to the pacifier. We finally decided that this last week was the week. We nearly got off course when Mommy gave yet another excuse. This time it wasn't for poor Stefan at all, but for poor Mommy. I mean, when we set the date we didn't know Daddy was going to be starting work that week. I tried. I told him it was me that was going to have to listen to the crying at naptime while he was at work blissfully unaware of all the trauma going on at home. I gave quite a number of excuses, and he just looked at me. Yes, he's right. The excuses have to stop. So we did it. We had an official ceremony and said "Bye bye" to the dear old friend. Oh how I wish that I had recorded the little ceremony. But, again, I was expecting trauma, and who wants trauma recorded for future generations to see? However, I was completely unprepared for the response. The conversation between Daddy and Stefan went something like this:

Daddy: Do you realize what an important day this is in your life? You are a big boy now and big boys don't have passy's. (Stefan solemnly nods) Have you ever seen Papi, or Uncle Bob, or Daddy with a passy? No, because they are men and they don't need passy's. (Nod again) We are going to say bye-bye to the passy.

Stefan: Passy all gone?

Daddy: Yes, all gone. I want you to think about it for a moment because this is going to change your life forever. (At this point Mommy is thinking just get this over with, along with the crying that is sure to come).

Stefan: Bye-bye passy.

And he kisses his passy and throws it in the trash. That was it. Nothing else. Not a cry. No mention of it. Went to bed without a peep and has never asked for it since. One night we are crying for it to go to sleep, and the next night no word about it.

So it is that our baby is growing up. No more cute pictures of a sleeping boy with his passy in his mouth. And we are so proud of his accomplishments. His other really big Big Boy accomplishment was that last week was his first full week to go without a diaper except for sleeping. Now that indeed is an accomplishment. So we celebrated. Pizza Night couldn't have been more fun. Stefan got really into the whole party thing and frequently reminded us that passy was all gone or that he was a big boy. Oh yes, he knew exactly why we were celebrating and it was fun to reward him for his accomplishments. We love our sweet growing boy.

So there you have it. The story of passy being "all gone."