Goodbye, Paci. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Charlie made a huge leap last week: he gave up his beloved pacifier (the "paci").  I had always planned to take this away when he turned 2, but it has been so hard for me to gear myself up for taking it away.  He LOVES his paci.  He was only allowed to have it in bed, and as a result, it made bedtime so exciting for him.  He loved to cuddle up with his paci, lovie, and a book before naps or bedtime.  But, I knew I had to do it at some point, so one day when my parents were in town, I decided to go for it.

We gathered up the pacis, loaded up, and took Charlie to his favorite toy store.  On the way over, I explained to him that we were going to trade in his pacis for a new toy at the toy store.  He looked very worried at first, but seemed to be working with himself on the way over.  He wanted to carry the pacis into the store himself, and looked SO adorable walking in with that little bag of pacis.  He was such a little man about it!  

Any reservations he had in the car were erased once we got into the toy store.  He raced around and could not believe that he was actually getting to pick a toy to take home.  He was shockingly decisive.  He first went crazy over a huge Bruder crane truck.  It was $120 worth of amazingness.  And HUGE.  We talked him out of that (he agreed that it was "just too big"), and moved on to other trucks.  He was hilarious as he went through the trucks.  He would settle on one ("I love the forklift!"), and then quickly re-shelve it when he saw something better ("I no yike the forklift.  I love the garbage truck!").  We finally got down to a logging truck and a garbage truck.  He decided on the garbage truck and was totally giddy over it, and then the sales lady brought out a big red fire engine.  The garbage truck was tossed aside with a desultory, "I no yike a garbage truck!"  Charlie was only too eager to hand over his pacis for the fire engine and has been playing with it constantly ever since. It spent the first few nights with him, but luckily, we've returned to just the lovie, stuffed animals, and a book or two in the crib.  Good thing, cause it was getting crowded in there!

Here's Charlie on his first paci-free morning...can't believe it was a success!

SOOO proud of himself.  When I walked in the room to get him up, he proudly (or nervously?) told me that "I not need pacis anymore.  I'm a big boy!"

The transition away from a paci was surprisingly easy at first.  Charlie was very excited about his fire engine and didn't seem to miss his paci too much.  He brings it up occasionally, but always seems ok with the fact that he's too big for pacis now (and totally leaves Evie's pacis alone, which is nice).  The only hard thing is that he's just not as happy going down for naps or bed as he was before.  We've had to let him cry a bit and he's been pushing harder and harder to stay up later.  I'm hoping that it's all just part of the transition away from the paci and that he'll get comfortable going down without it soon.  But overall, I am so proud of my big boy for being so good with this transition--once again, he surprised me!