A welcome milestone in the family

It seems every little kid has an addiction to something. My 18 month-old daughter loves her blankie. She sits on the couch with her blankie wrapped around her as she rubs it and sucks on the two middle fingers of her right hand. We can live with that.

For our three year-old son, his addiction was his pacifier (his beloved "passy"). Pretty much from the day of his birth, he had a passy either in his mouth, or one close by. He and his passy were inseparable. That was fine when he was younger, but as he hit three years of age, and still relied on that thing as much as ever, my wife and I started to get a little wary. We limited use of the passy to bedtime only, but our son would sneak time with it as much as he could. When we would walk up to take it away, he would often say, "Just one more suck!" Notice I am talking about all this in the past-tense, because on Friday, my wife and I finally took care of the issue once and for all. Rather than recounting the entire story, will just copy and paste the email my wife sent out to family and friends. She wrote a detailed account of this momentous occasion, and attached a bunch of pictures of the blessed event, including the one I posted above. I have edited to email to exclude personal information, such as real names, that I would rather not have on the Internet. For the purposes of privacy, I will change my son's name to "B", for Build a Bear! Enjoy:

Subject: Meet Holiday

Happy Friday to all of you!

I hope this finds you well. B reached a major milestone today that
I thought all of you would appreciate knowing about, since at one point
or another I have complained to you about B's comfort item, the
only thing he has ever really bonded to.... His beloved passy. The
child is almost three and a half and there hasn't been a day of his life
that he hasn't had a passy in his mouth while going to sleep. B's
passies have been up and down the state of California, to other states
including Texas, Nevada, and Arizona. We haven't gone far without a
passy. These passies have driven me crazy since the day B was born
because, being that I was a perfect mother until that day, NO CHILD OF
MINE WAS EVER GOING TO SUCK ON A PACIFIER!

B has only ever been allowed to sleep with his passy. He is not
one of those kids you would see at the grocery store with one (or like
the five year old I saw riding her bike with one today at the park!!).
He has always maintained control of his passy while he is sleeping.
When he was in his crib, we had 6-8 of them in there so he could feel
around in the dark and fine one as necessary. When he got his big boy
bed about a year ago, he just kept one in his mouth all night (we still
can't figure out how!). But recently (my theory is that with preschool
and Sunday School, etc. the kid is bushed beyond belief!), he has been
losing them in the middle of the night which has required one of his
sleepy parents to rip his bed apart and crawl around on the floor
looking for the passy in the wee hours of the night.

ENOUGH. I had an idea a couple of months ago. We would take B to
Build A Bear in the mall and let him pick the animal of his choice. We
would put the pacifiers inside the animal while it was being stuffed.
We talked about this a little bit and B's response has always been,
"just not yet. Maybe in a little while. Maybe closer to Christmas."
This week, his mother and father decided it was going to be a bit sooner
than B had planned. This afternoon, our family of four ventured to
Build A Bear.

We had looked online and B decided he wanted a monkey. We walked
in and found the monkey right away. He had also pre-named the monkey.
His name would be Holiday**, named after B's favorite 80's song
(thanks for the 80s exposure, Daddy!). I had explained to B earlier in the day that we were going to put the passies into the animal
and they would be stitched up. The best thing about having his passies
in an animal was that they could go anywhere with us! I also explained
that lately his body was saying "no more passies" because his mouth was
spitting the passy out at night and it was hard for us to find it. He
understood!

So today was Passy Celebration Day in honor of B. We went to
Chevy's for dinner (his choice was Chevy's on the River, but it's just
too busy on Fridays). They honored him with a sombrero and a special
tour of El Machino, the tortilla maker. It was really fun.

I have to say the kid was really strong. I put him down just a bit ago
and it did take him longer than usual, but he is in there as I type, out
like a light, snuggling with Holiday. At one point, after brushing his
teeth, he asked me to get his passy. I said he already had his
passies, that they were inside Holiday. B then asked me to cut
Holiday open. I said that was impossible. He smiled and said, "I
know." Hopefully he will sleep straight through and we will too.

Another milestone. These kids grow up so fast!
Thank you for indulging me.
Love,
Mrs. Chanman

**The song Holiday is not the one from Madonna, like you were probably thinking. It's actually a much more obscure song from 1987 by an Australian group called The Other Ones.

My boy is growing up.

Good Day to You, Sir