What We Did This Past Weekend: Sunday

I am happy to report that our house is now a nuk-free zone.  Lydia was done using her pacifiers months ago, and now big sister Alethea has made the transition too.  It probably would have been good to take Alethea’s nuks away sooner, but she has had a remarkably high number of transitions in the last year and a half (new room, new beds, new baby sister, potty training) and there just never seemed to be a good time to go through withdrawal.  But we knew it was best if her binky days came to an end, so about a month ago we started telling her about the special stuffed animal she would get after Lydia’s birthday party.

Let me explain.  I read a few articles about how to ease the transition to nuklessness and talked with a couple friends about it as well.  The idea that was the most appealing to me (and I thought would be the easiest for Alethea to accept), was to take the nuks to the Build-A-Bear store and put them inside a stuffed animal.  That way Alethea could ‘keep’ her nuks forever, but they would no longer end up in her mouth.  After convincing Peter that this was the way to go, we started talking it up to Alethea.  Although I’m not sure exactly how well she understood what was going to happen, we know she sort of got it, since at Lydia’s party she told my sister in law, “I’m a big girl.  I don’t need a nuk.”  And as the last guests were headed out the door, she asked me, “Go get my stuffed animal now?”

So, we figured she was as prepared as she’d ever be and Sunday we took the plunge.  At the store, the first step was for Alethea to pick out her Build-A-Bear carcass.  She selected a brown puppy.  And no, they don’t call them carcasses at the store, they tell you to pick a friend, but really, it looks like a carcass…

While we were waiting our turn for the stuffing machine, we noticed that you could add a noise maker to your ‘friend’.  They happened to have a Brahms’ Lullaby one (Alethea’s favorite bedtime song), so we let her get it to put inside her puppy.  (The noise maker is in the little white cloth bag Alethea is holding in the next picture.)

The nice guy at the stuffing machine put in the noise maker and then filled Alethea’s puppy with fluffy white stuff…

And then Alethea put her last two nuks inside.  “Say, ‘Bye, Nuks!'” I told her.  “Bye bye, Nuks,” echoed Alethea.  And then the Build-A-Bear guy closed him up!

After the puppy was complete, Alethea got to give him an air bath to get any extra fuzz off.

Then we paid for him and took him home!

As you can tell from the pictures, Alethea was compliant, although not necessarily overjoyed by the event.  On the car ride home (to endless repetitions of Brahms’ Lullaby) I asked her whether she liked her new puppy.  “I’m excited,” she said, “But I want my nuks out of him.”

In the days since we bid farewell to the nuks, Alethea has managed to nap two days out of the four and has gone to bed easily every night.  She has not once woken up crying for the nuks during the night, as I was expecting.  We’ve only had one major meltdown (Sunday afternoon at nap time) that I’m sure was entirely related to the nuks.  It was both sad and slightly funny when she sobbed, “I just want one!  Okay?  Just the green one!”

As far as her attachment to the puppy goes, she seems to like him fine, but he definitely is playing third fiddle to Dee (Alethea’s number one since she was about nine months old) and Clifford (her number two since he showed up in June).  He did get a name though.  When we walked out of the store, we asked her, “What’s your puppy’s name?”

“Nuky,” said Alethea.

Peter and I looked at each other.  “How ’bout ‘Nuks’?” suggested Peter.

“No, Nuky,” replied Alethea.

“I think his name might be ‘Pacifier’,” I said.

“No, he’s Nuky,” said Alethea.

In the end though, Peter didn’t feel that ‘Nuky’ was an appropriate name for one of his daughter’s stuffed animals, and we have since convinced her to call him ‘Lullaby’.

I think it’s for all for the best!

Just for old time’s sake, here’s a pictures from Alethea’s first Twins game when she was almost a year old:

So long nuks!  Thanks for the memories!