DARWIN is on his 12th year of teaching, currently at Springville High School teaching astronomy, geology, environmental science, and physics. He also teaches physics at UVU for a 7 week STEM summer school program for junior high students. He also teaches teenagers in our church ward. He's super busy, but still makes time to be an awesome dad and husband.Actually that's not true. I have to share how proud I am of our little sweetheart. She never ceases to amaze me and always seems to surpass my expectations.
I was really nervous to get rid of "binky" because of how attached she was to it (and like I admitted before, I was pretty attached to it too and loved the ease of getting her to sleep with it). I thought for sure she'd have a conniption without having binky. I tried once a few months back to wean her from binky during nap time and then let her have it at night and that did not go over well. She screamed for 45 minutes straight, would not let me rock her or sing to her, and as soon as I gave in and let her have binky she was asleep within a minute. Little stinker.
So, here's the story:
Last Monday morning while Aurora was distracted watching something on Disney Junior I sneaked into her room with the scissors and made a cut in the binky. I seriously almost cried. No joke. I intentionally went to run errands with her before nap time, hoping she'd get worn out from being out and that it would make things easier for both of us. Nap time rolled around and she asked for binky so I gave it to her. She tried to suck on it for a good 5 minutes or so but I could tell from her effort and the look on her face that the clipping had worked. After a while she took binky out and looked at it like, "What's wrong with this thing?" She showed it to me and I said, "Uh-oh, binky is broken." She then said, "Fickit, Mommy," wanting me to fix it. She also stuck it in my mouth so I could test it out and see that it wasn't working too. She asked me to fix it a few more times but I told her I couldn't. I honestly felt really bad, but she was handling it like an angel! I tried to get her to sleep but she was completely wide awake. After playing in her crib for almost an hour, I took her out and fed her lunch (usually I feed her before nap time) and tried again. This time when she put binky in her mouth she kept it in for a couple of minutes and then said, "Garbage," so we went to the kitchen and threw it away. No crying or anything!! (Dar actually had me get her binky out of the garbage that night after she went to sleep so we could put it in her keepsake box :) )
She never did take a nap that day, but went to sleep that night like a charm! She was seriously out within like 5 minutes. I was worried that she'd decided she was done with nap time since she no longer had her binky, but luckily we're back on schedule like normal. She has asked for binky a few times, but usually right after reminds herself that binky went in the garbage and we had to throw it away because it was broken. She has honestly done A-MAZ-ING-LY!! I couldn't have asked for a better weaning processes. We've been binky free for about a week now and I'm astonished at our little trooper.
Way to go, Aurora! Mommy and Daddy are SO PROUD OF YOU!!
P.S. Thank you, friends, for your suggestions and support on this :)
P.P.S. Blogger is telling me I've used up all my space for pictures and won't let me upload any more. Has anyone else had this problem, and what did you do to solve it? I'd rather not pay for more storage space if there's a way to get around it.
