Saying Goodbye to Pacis (November 2015)

I'm backtracking quite a bit and posting something I wrote back in November but never posted. Time passes so quickly with little ones!

Barrett has been a paci baby since the day he was born. He had a deep love for his pacis and was very emotionally connected to them. They comforted him and he would even sleep holding two handfuls of them sometimes. As an infant, he would scream when it would fall out of his mouth and he was too little to pick it up. As a one year old he would hoard them in his crib, behind his crib, and all around the house. As a two year old, he would line them up along his crib side and practice his counting with them, and as a three-year-old we began preparing him to say goodbye to his beloved pacis. We talked about it for months and he would get very sad and say "It's going to be hard, Mommy" As silly as it sounds, my heart broke for him that he had to give up something he loved. Steven and I were both sad and dreading how hard this transition was going to be.

We decided to wait until we moved into our new house to save all the big changes for the same time. We moved into our house the week of Thanksgiving and spent the week mainly getting Barrett's room done. We waited until his room was pretty much complete before staying the night so he could have his comfort zone during the transition.
The first big change was transitioning from the crib to a big boy bed. We decided on a full size bed so he can keep his furniture forever, and it's also big enough for all three of us to lay in there and read him books :) We wanted to do everything at once and make a big deal that he was a big boy now in his new bed, in his new house, and without his pacis. Steven and I were fully expecting to not get sleep for at least a week, and were prepared to have our patience tested with a lot of crying and fits. We were completely surprised at how well he transitioned! He had a few moments of whining and asking for his pacis but nothing even close to his normal toddler fits. How did this even happen? The biggest transitions of his life so far and our wild, strong-willed little Bear Bear took it all like a champ. I was so proud I bought him a Snoopy stuffed animal and blanket to give to him after he took his first nap in his big boy bed. He was so proud, and I cried at how tiny he looked in his grown up bed.