Bye Bye Binky!

After flying back into town from a two week vacation, being two hours delayed sitting on the tarmac, carrying a sleeping Cohen IN his car seat off of one plane into the airport and then onto a new plane, we decided (or more so I) what better time to get rid of the oh-so beloved binky? Well to be fair, this was something we had spent much of the vacation attempting to prepare Cohen for, had talked multiple times about the plan, and had let him decide it would be a panda bear that he would put his binky inside of at the Build A Bear store. And with my work schedule we had to take advantage of the whopping two nights that I had off to be home and assist in the bedtime battle before returning to work and leaving daddy on his own. So since we had devised a plan, spent time talking to him about it, and really lets be honest mostly because once mommy makes her mind up about something, that is what we do, we decided this was the night. So a very nervous mom and dad and a carefree photographing nanny, and an unsuspecting 2 year old all set out at 7pm (30 minutes prior to bedtime no less) to the Chandler Fashion Mall Build A Bear store to follow through on the proposed adventure. Much to my surprise we walked in the door and told Cohen he could pick any animal and he walked straight over and pointed to the panda (which I wasn't sure he even knew what was).

So we promptly grabbed it and handed it to the nice lady who picked right up on the fact that this was a "binky bear" and proceeded with the attempted up selling efforts, before resigning to just stuff the bear, put the free heart in, and let Cohen shove the beloved binky inside, then quickly pulled the strings, cinched the sucker up and viol la bye bye binky!!!!!

Cohen was mostly clueless in the store, distracted by the displays, climbing on stuff etc, but did opt for the big cardboard box "house" for the bear and carried his new treasure (or enemy) out of the store straight to his favorite play area, where he promptly tossed it on the floor and headed onto the toys.

We let him play for a few minutes then took off for home to see what would happen next. After following our normal bedtime routine minus the binky of course, he realized it was inside the bear and exclaimed "I want my binky out of there!" at story time. But I just kept reassuring him that he was big boy now and didn't need it anymore and that it was inside the bear. We said a prayer about sleeping without a binky and then off to bed. He quickly started yelling about getting his binky back and when I went back in the room he had the bear flipped over and was digging at the back of the bear right along the stitching and there was a great deal of black hair tufts spread throughout the crib. I thought briefly that he had actually ripped it open, but he hadn't. So instead I gave in on three rounds of Cheerios, water, and lots of reassuring talk and convinced him to go to sleep. I heard a little fussing at 3:45am but no major disturbances. At his nap the next day I again explained that none of our big kid cousins or friends have binky's, that they are for babies and that he is a big boy now. After putting him down with Cheerios again of course I heard him on the monitor explaining to all his animal friends that "binky's are for tiny babies and that I am big boy now, I'm a big boy." The second night he told me he wanted to be a baby and have his binky back but I again reassured him and distracted him with Cheerios, snacks, prayers, and a chewing ring and sent him off to bed, to which he woke up at an ungodly hour in the morning then proceeded to skip his nap all together as he and daddy battled it out today while I attempted to sleep. So all in all I would say Cohen has championed through the binky farewell fairly well, we will see what tomorrow brings. Now his teeth can come back down into place and we can celebrate being rid of that darn thing!