How Elmo Helped Grayson Give Up His Paci

At Grayson's two year check up his doctor told me that we needed to start working on getting Grayson to give up using his pacifers. This was no small feat. Grayson typically sleeps with a paci in his mouth...and another in his right hand, another in his left, and sometimes a fourth floating somewhere in the crib. We knew that we needed to get creative, so we turned to Elmo.

We watched this video several times and talked to Grayson about giving his pacis as a gift to baby Christian. He loved this idea. He is just smitten with Christian, so he loves the idea of giving him any gift, hug, kiss or snuggle.

We decided that we would decorate a special box for the paci gift, so I pulled out the sticker stash and let him go to town. He still is talking about the special box and the stickers.

Here is the masterpiece Grayson created.

We gathered all of the pacis and put them in the box. On Super Bowl Sunday we had a special moment where Grayson gave the box and pacis to Christian. He was so excited about it!

He had a rough first night. Lots of tears and calling for his pacis, but since then he has been doing much better. He still has a little trouble falling asleep at the beginning of his naps, but soon falls asleep. Sometimes he asks about his pacis, but I'll ask him where they are and he proudly responds, "Christian!". He also loves singing the Elmo paci song.

Overall this was such a success! I'm so proud of my sweet boy. While I'm proud of Grayson, this has also been a really hard experience for me. It was such a big step towards growing up and I'm realizing just how quickly the days go by. I had a mini panic attack as a realized that I won't be able to relive these years again. I try to capture moments on tape, photo and writing here on the blog, but I still worry that I'll forget. Every day he says more, does something new, makes me laugh, lets his personality shine and continues growing into such a sweet and amazing little man. No moment, big or small, is taken for granted.