You may remember a good number of months ago Shyla went through "Binky Bootcamp" in which she was only allowed her binky for sleeping. She did great and we celebrated at Peter Piper Pizza. Well, over the last few months the binky has crept back into the picture. She is well over three now and she told me that no one else at preschool uses a binky. Thus, we decided it was time to stop putting off the inevitable and say "bye-bye binky."
Something had me feeling very crazy brave yesterday so we collected all the binkies, allowed her to choose her favorite, and loaded up the car. Destination: Build-A-Bear Workshop.
Here she is outside of the mall, favorite green binky in hand.
She chose a giant, purple Hello Kitty, even with Stevie and I gently persuading her toward something (anything) else. She rubbed the fabric heart on her nose to make it come to life ...
And she stuffed the heart AND the favorite green binky into the kitty!
She gave kitty a bath, then picked out a t-shirt, panties, and tap-shoes for her to wear.
Created her birth certificate on the computer. Official name: Hello Binky.
And left the store full of smiles with Hello Binky in her arms.
And on her head.
And later buckled into her carseat.
And later in her arms again.
We had talked a lot about the activity and what it meant, but she was no one near prepared enough. She kept asking me to "squeeze it up again" which I later determined meant to open the stitch and remove the binky. When I refused, she tried to do it herself (thank you Build-A-Bear guy for stitching her up really well!)
Last night was rough. But it could have been worse. She cried for her binky for a little over an hour, but we stayed strong. Thankfully her crying doesn't wake Harper up (I credit daycare for teaching my girls to sleep through anything).
The thought of, "let's just let her use it for sleeping" definitely entered my mind. But I kept remembering how that set-up didn't work last time. So we were forced to stay strong and wait out the storm.
I hope she will keep Hello Binky forever and I hope she will someday (soon) forget why she even liked using a binky. And I also hope last night was the worst and it will only get easier.
Bye-bye Binky.
