The soothers are GONE!!

I was really looking forward to Christmas this year. Not only was I looking forward to it because my kids are getting old enough to understand and actually open gifts on their own, but mostly because when Santa left our house on December 24th, he was taking something very important with him.
Soothers. Every last one of them! This picture is from last Christmas and it was the only way I could get them both on Santa's lap. I'll admit it, I used the soother to it's full potential. It worked wonders on getting kids to nap, go to bed, eat (somewhat) quietly at a restaurant, manage long car rides, you name it, it did it.

The soother was a real life saver early on in my parenting career. Rylan had this never ending urge to suck, and for anyone new to breastfeeding, you know what can happen if you don't give in and use a soother.

Rylan became quite dependent on the old "night-night" as it was referred to in our house. When we started the weening process, we would only let her have it when it was time to nap or go to bed. She came up with the name on her own and we ran with it.

We tried taking it away when she turned 2. We said that the Night-Night Fairy came and took her soother and in return brought her a gift. The gift was exciting until about 1:30 when nap time rolled around. She refused to nap. She was in her room, laying on her back on the floor kicking the door for an hour straight yelling, "I want my night-night!!!". It was horrible. I decided against a nap that day and thought it would be easier that night with the added support of Tony being home from work. Round 2, bed time. Rylan assumed the same position on the floor behind the door again and followed the same procedure as nap time. After an undetermined length of time, she fell asleep on the floor behind her door. Success? Sort of? We felt pretty crappy, kind of like the worst parents in the world actually.

That night we decided to call the Night-Night Fairy and have her return the night-night and we'd try a new technique.

My cousin had great success getting her daughter off the soother by poking holes in it. We tried it, nothing. I even went as far as cutting pieces out of it. I would cut a little more each day until it got to the point that every time Rylan went to say anything, the soother would fall right out. We thought this would be a perfect plan. She will get so annoyed with it always falling out that she'll just give it up. That didn't happen.

A few weeks later she was back to a regular full sized soother (I can't even remember how this happened) and we were back to square one. We gave up trying to get rid of it for a long time. Tatum was just a baby so there were a lot of other things going on in the house that kept us from pursuing the great soother heist.

October 2010: We started telling Rylan that when she turns 3 (December), she will be too big for a soother. This happened every time she asked for it, looked at it, touched it, pointed at it or even just thought about it. She was warned.

November 2010: We came up with the best plan ever! What if Santa came here, took both kids' soothers and left a whole whack of presents? How can they hate a man that brings them all sorts of gifts? We started telling Rylan all about Santa and how when he comes, he's taking the soothers back to the North Pole for other kids that need them. Sanitary, no. Brilliant, yes!
We asked Rylan if there was a special gift Santa could bring her since he was going to be taking her soother and she said she wanted a Diego doll. Wouldn't you know it, Diego dolls are hard to find! I found one that came with Dora (perfect! Tatum gets Dora, Rylan gets Diego) on Ebay. We had a massive snow storm right before Christmas that stopped mail delivery for 3 days. I was panicked! Thankfully Dora and Diego showed up with a couple of days to spare.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve. We left Santa homemade cookies, a carrot for Rudolph, and 2 precious soothers on a plate. A few tears were shed before bed time, but the excitement of Christmas definitely worked in our favour. Both kids were in bed, without soothers!!! It was a Christmas miracle!

Christmas Day: Deigo and Dora were opened, soothers forgotten, and we are now living sootherless ever after!

The End!