WE DID IT!

As many of you know, Chase has loved his paci! When he was a baby he would take every now and then, but it wasn't something that he HAD to have. Then, a year later, Nate-Dogg was born into the family. Alisha and family were over at the house and Chase saw Nate-Dogg wrapped in a blankie with a paci in his mouth, and from that moment on, Chase decided that he needed a paci and blankie. We have had both ever since and not a night went by that Chase didn't have them with him. I let Chase have a paci for a while all day long, but then decided that if he had to have one, it was only going to be allowed during nap time and bed time. He did this pretty well. Soon he gave up naps and the paci was only used at bed time. Let me tell you, he LOVED that paci. It was the best bribery to get him into bed and he would be asleep in a few minutes time. It was seriously so nice. Chase is turning four on Sunday and I finally decided that it was time to get rid of pacis. His teeth were getting messed up and I swear he would have sucked that thing until he went to college. I decided at first to tell him that when he turned four that he was going to have to throw his pacis away to get presents, but then we decided that we probably shouldn't associate this with his birthday since I thought it would be kind of traumatic. Haha. So I then decided that we would go to "the REAL toy store" as Chase calls it (ie-Toys'R'Us) and let him pick out any toy he wanted. So we went and after an hour of grazing and me trying to convince him that he did, indeed, want this toy or that. He would say that he did and then I had to make sure and ask him if it was enough to give up his pacis for. He would slowly put it back on the shelf, until we found this set of 3 red Power Rangers. That was it. He wanted those Power Rangers, and that was exactly what we bought. I wouldn't let him open them until we got home and threw ALL pacis in the trash so that there would be no going back. The second we got home, Chase and I went upstairs and got his pacis and I had him throw them in the yucky kitchen trash. He did it with no problems and was so eager to open his new Power Rangers. He played with those things all day. There was a small one, a medium one that transformed into the tiger, and a large one. Too cool. We got kind of worried that the idea of the Power Rangers to sleep with would wear off by bed time, but again he surprised me! As we were heading up to bed he came up to the trash can and looked down in it and said, "bye bye!" and turned to walk up the stairs. He climbed into bed and layed down with out whining for his paci. He sat up at one point and said, "I want my paci....oooh yeah...." and then layed back down and within 15 minutes he was sound asleep! Last night, he woke up at about 3:30 with a coughing attack and we had to give him a breathing treatment, and when he woke up he didn't even mention his paci! What a trooper!! I am so proud of him. I am also hoping that I didn't just jinx myself for tonight! :)