Goodnight

Today's bedtime was light-years better than last night's. I guess I need to back up about five years though.

I used to see toddlers with pacifiers and think it was the most ridiculous thing. Pacifiers are for babies. Only! We took away Alex's pacifier at 14 months, and that was two months later than I thought he should have it. But Edison was really attached to his pacifier. We tried to only let him have it in bed but he would go downstairs and find his pacifier himself and then wander around with it in his mouth. It could soothe him so easily. We just never took it away.

I wanted there to be an end though. A two-year-old with a pacifier? Not in my house. We let him have it on the night of his birthday for the last time, and then last night we confiscated it. We let Alex put a pacifier in his mouth and Edison had one, too. Then we asked who wanted to be a big boy. Alex said, "I do!" And he threw the pacifier in the bin (we save pacifiers for the next kid, don't judge). I asked, "Who else wants to be a big boy?" And Edison put his pacifier in the bin. We put the lid on the bin and then stuck it in the closet, gave kisses, and put the boys in their beds.

Oh, poor Edison. I could see him figuring it out. He felt so tricked. He was sad. He tried to say, "Pacifier" but I pretended not to understand him so he started pointing to his mouth. We kept repeating that he was such a big boy and we were proud of him, but he struggled to fall asleep. We had to go down and comfort him a few times. Eventually he got tired and went to sleep.

Tonight, he asked for it once and we told him that he's a big boy now and then he fell asleep. Alex, on the other hand was yelling for two hours, "I'm all done sleeping!" Nice try. Someone get that kid a pacifier.