Will I ever catch up on all the milestones in this house? Here’s a big one.

Upon our return from the Outer Banks, we decided to try having the Binky Fairy come to take away Alex’s 2 binks and leave him a big boy toy. I was dreading the big event, sure it would mess up the one child in this house who does reliably sleep through the night. I know he’s 3, but it’s not like he’s that 5 year old in Walmart taking his pacifier out so he can suck down his Mountain Dew. The old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” sprang to mind every time I considered it. But when a speech therapist from Frederick County Public Schools could tell within a 5 minute conversation that he used one, even if it was only at bedtime and for naps, and hinted that it could be causing some of the speech concerns we have, I knew the time had come.

We talked it up for a few weeks before, and Alex was mostly on board. He wanted a suction cup dart shooter like his good buddies Evan and Jake have at their house in exchange for giving the pacifiers to a new baby who needed them via the Binky Fairy.

I was feeling wimpy, though, so I decided to give it a trial run on the night we got home from the beach. The kids were exhausted and we put Alex to bed telling him that we couldn’t find his binkies, they must have been packed in our luggage, and I’d bring them when I found them. I figured if things got ugly, we could give them back and lie to ourselves about him just not being ready and put it off another 6 months or so. To my great shock, he slept all night without them. Success! The next night, he got a letter from the binky fairy explaining that she had taken his binkies, and she’d leave him a great toy the following night because she was so grateful and proud of him. He got his suction cup dart shooter the next morning. Turns out the binky fairy didn’t read the packaging that said the toy was appropriate for kids 8 and up, so Alex can’t pull the action part back, and you have to do that every time you want to shoot. I helped him a few times, but for the most part now, a couple of weeks later, the gun is MIA, the kittens play with the dusty old darts when they find them under the couch, and Adam has bitten 2 or 3 darts in half. The biggest miracle of all is that after the first couple of days, when Alex would randomly ask for his binky, he has completely forgotten about them. We’ve not had a single tear, much less the crying, screaming fits I had envisioned. I’m so proud of how easily Alex gave up something that gave him lots of comfort and really helped him to settle himself down when he was upset.

Now, we just need to get Avery to stop sucking her thumb! A long time ago, she asked me if there was a thumb fairy who would come and cut hers off. I told her no, but we may need to revisit that.