Those two pictures were taken on the morning of March 13th. When I took those pictures, I had no idea that those would be the last pictures ever taken of Luke with his numi. I thought it was sweet that Luke crawled up into bed and covered himself up beside of Daddy while I got ready for work, so I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots - a few shots that ended up being very sentimental....the very next day, March 14th, my baby boy would take another step out of "babyhood" into "big boy land." Bittersweet, ya'll! :) Let me tell the story of Luke's last day with the numis! As you know, the dentist STRONGLY suggested that I get rid of Luke's paci as soon as possible. This recommendation was made in February. I have put it off because I feared that Luke's sleeping habits (that weren't so great anyway) would get worse without the numis. I thought I would just wait until summer time to fight the possible sleep deprivation that we would all have when the numis disappeared.
On Wednesday, a friend of mine at work told me that she just took her little girl's pacis away just this past week. Her little girl is Luke's age. She originally told me that she was going to wait until summer to fight the paci disappearance too, but, she said that after her daughter visited the pediatrician and the doctor told her that her little girl's teeth were beginning to shift, she decided to move up the date of the paci disappearance. Her little girl had several rough nights without the paci. After my talk with my friend, I began thinking - oh no, what if I am allowing Luke's teeth to be permanently damaged because of my selfishness of wanting to have sleep? This thought drove me bonkers!! So bonkers that throughout the day, I kept thinking and thinking and thinking and finally developed a plan - a plan that I knew I would put into place that very afternoon.
I knew that Wednesday was going to be the perfect day for a few reasons - (1) Daddy was out of town so I didn't have to worry about him getting frustrated if Luke didn't sleep, (2) we had a playdate with Heather and Silas scheduled so I knew that Luke would be super tired from playing at the park, and (3) several events had just occurred or were about to occur that I could use as leverage....one of these events was the arrival of baby Haley. Sweet baby Haley is the daughter of my cousin, Erin, and her husband, Steven. They live in McLeansville. Last Sunday night, we took over dinner and visited with the new arrival and the new parents. Luke has always loved babies so this was the visit of a lifetime for him. He fell in love with baby Haley immediately and wanted to touch her and hold her. Erin, being the already so very laid back mom that she is, said that Luke could hold Haley. We carefully positioned Luke and the Boppy and then placed baby Haley in his lap. He grinned and grinned and grinned! It was adorable! Here are some cute pictures and there is a super cute video of him talking to her at the bottom. (For germ purposes, I wouldn't let Luke touch Haley's face so he rubbed her belly and her tiny toes.) All he kept saying is, "Isn't she sweet????" (in his super country voice). Check out the pics....
Now, back to my plan....for days, Luke talked about how sweet baby Haley was and how tiny she was so I worked this memory of Haley into my plan...(before I continue I must say this - I ordered WAY TOO MUCH for Luke's Easter basket!! Imagine that??? Matter of fact, I had to buy 2 baskets to put it all in! Because I had so much to give him, I thought that maybe the Easter Bunny could make an early visit and I could work his visit into my getting rid of the numis plan. Luke and I had already starting to talk about the Easter Bunny and read a few books about him so Luke was familiar enough for me to include the Easter Bunny in the plan.)
I forgot to mention - we, of course, wrote baby Haley's name on the top so the mailman would know where to deliver the numis. There goes Luke out the door...I should mention that just seconds before Luke made it all the way to the door, he put his box down on the floor, sat on top of it, and looked at me with this very hesitant ("Am I really doing this?") face. It was JUST about enough to make me change my mind but I knew I couldn't - we had come so far - the numis were being mailed TONIGHT! :) With some encouragement, Luke headed toward the door. See???
I was even able to convince him to turn around and let me take one picture....
Together, we walked down the steps with Luke carrying the box himself. I said to Luke, "This is an exciting moment, Luke." (He has no idea how big of a deal this really was!) He was so sweet - he kept repeating all the way to the mailbox, "This is an exciting moment." He looked absolutely adorable carrying the little box. When we reached the mailbox, I picked him up, opened the mailbox and as soon as his eyes saw Daisy Duck, he was ready to give up the box of numis. :) He took Daisy and the figurine package and ran to the grass ready to open it - leaving me to put Haley's box in the mailbox. I reminded him that the Easter Bunny brought him these special toys because he was proud of the big boy that he was for mailing his numis to baby Haley. He just couldn't stop grinning and begged me to open his new toys. Here are some pictures of his surprises...
Luke and I headed to the steps and sat down for a second to look at his gifts. Because it was dark, we went on inside so I could find some scissors to open his Mickey figurines. He sat his new "Mickey friends" (as he later called them) on the table and began talking about which ones went together - Daisy and Clarabelle Cow go together, Mickey and Minnie go together, and the two dogs (Pluto and Fifi) go together. At one point, he lined them all up and just looked at them and grinned. See???
It was so sweet watching him enjoy these surprises so much! I was beginning to feel pretty good about this plan - Luke seemed highly distracted! :)
Now, back to my plan....for days, Luke talked about how sweet baby Haley was and how tiny she was so I worked this memory of Haley into my plan...(before I continue I must say this - I ordered WAY TOO MUCH for Luke's Easter basket!! Imagine that??? Matter of fact, I had to buy 2 baskets to put it all in! Because I had so much to give him, I thought that maybe the Easter Bunny could make an early visit and I could work his visit into my getting rid of the numis plan. Luke and I had already starting to talk about the Easter Bunny and read a few books about him so Luke was familiar enough for me to include the Easter Bunny in the plan.) On Wednesday afternoon, Carolyn met me at work with Luke at 4:00. Luke had a hair appointment in High Point at 4:30 so we quickly headed that way. On our way to the hair appointment, I told Luke that I had a phone call today from the Easter Bunny. Luke's interest peeked. I told him that the Easter Bunny told me that his new cousin, Baby Haley, needed some numis and that if Luke would mail her all of his then the Easter Bunny would visit early and leave some special gifts in the mailbox.
I repeated this plan to Luke several times and then asked him what he thought. I said, "Do you want to mail your numis to baby Haley?" He said, "Yes!" I reminded him that if we mailed them they would be gone forever. He still said, "Yes!" So, after Luke's hair cut (which he did fabulous at), Luke and I went by Target. I let Luke pick out a box, markers, and some pink tissue paper for baby Haley's package. He was excited about decorating the plain white box - so excited that he started decorating it while we waited in line at Target. :)
After getting our shipping supplies, we loaded up the car and headed to Heather and Silas' house for our playdate. Every time we were in the car, I talked about what was going to happen - the numis would be mailed to baby Haley and then the Easter Bunny would leave a special surprise in the mailbox. Luke continued to seem excited about this whole event! :)
The boys played and played and played at the park near Heather's new house (we really enjoyed this new park. It was super safe for the boys and had swings!). As always, we had a great time and also as usual, we headed to McDonald's for some chicken nuggets and fries. :) We had a delicious dinner together! The boys were starving - they ate and ate and ate and Heather and I talked and talked and talked. It's so nice to have a grown up that can relate to life with a toddler. These playdates are very therapeutic for both of us. :)
After dinner, it was time for us to head home for the packing of the numis. Again, we talked about what was going to happen all the way home. Thank goodness because Luke now goes to bed at 9:00pm, we had plenty of time to get all of this fun stuff crammed into one night. :)
As soon as we got home, I gave Luke the box and the markers and let him start decorating. While he was highly engaged in his decorating skills, I snuck out the front door and slipped a few of those extra Easter presents that I had into the mailbox. I chose to put a Daisy Duck stuffed animal and a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse figurine set. Luke has been asking for both of these so I knew he would be thrilled! In less than 30 seconds, I returned to the living room to help Luke finish his beautiful decorating. When he said he was done decorating, we collected all of the numis from around the house and the car. I showed Luke that I was taking them out of the two usual locations that we keep them in. I wanted him to see that ALL the pacis were going in the box. After collecting 8 numis, we added the pink tissue paper to the box, put the numis inside, closed the box, and QUICKLY taped it shut (I sure didn't want any time for my 2 year old to change his mind.) Here are a few pictures of his box....
I forgot to mention - we, of course, wrote baby Haley's name on the top so the mailman would know where to deliver the numis. There goes Luke out the door...I should mention that just seconds before Luke made it all the way to the door, he put his box down on the floor, sat on top of it, and looked at me with this very hesitant ("Am I really doing this?") face. It was JUST about enough to make me change my mind but I knew I couldn't - we had come so far - the numis were being mailed TONIGHT! :) With some encouragement, Luke headed toward the door. See???
I was even able to convince him to turn around and let me take one picture....
Together, we walked down the steps with Luke carrying the box himself. I said to Luke, "This is an exciting moment, Luke." (He has no idea how big of a deal this really was!) He was so sweet - he kept repeating all the way to the mailbox, "This is an exciting moment." He looked absolutely adorable carrying the little box. When we reached the mailbox, I picked him up, opened the mailbox and as soon as his eyes saw Daisy Duck, he was ready to give up the box of numis. :) He took Daisy and the figurine package and ran to the grass ready to open it - leaving me to put Haley's box in the mailbox. I reminded him that the Easter Bunny brought him these special toys because he was proud of the big boy that he was for mailing his numis to baby Haley. He just couldn't stop grinning and begged me to open his new toys. Here are some pictures of his surprises...
Luke and I headed to the steps and sat down for a second to look at his gifts. Because it was dark, we went on inside so I could find some scissors to open his Mickey figurines. He sat his new "Mickey friends" (as he later called them) on the table and began talking about which ones went together - Daisy and Clarabelle Cow go together, Mickey and Minnie go together, and the two dogs (Pluto and Fifi) go together. At one point, he lined them all up and just looked at them and grinned. See???
It was so sweet watching him enjoy these surprises so much! I was beginning to feel pretty good about this plan - Luke seemed highly distracted! :) I told Luke that it was bath time and that we should take his Mickey friends to the tub with him so he carried them to the tub. In the tub, he washed each of his new friends and then dried them off when it was time to get out.
After Luke and all of his Mickey friends were clean and dry, I put on Luke's overnight diaper and went to another room to get his pjs. Luke then took the time to take all of his new friends and put them in his big bed. When I returned with Luke's pjs, Luke was lying on his bed, holding Daisy and hugging her and talking to her as he laid her on the pillow in his bed. It was adorable!
It was quite late and Luke and I both were exhausted so we brushed his teeth and headed to the rocking chair with NO NUMIS. We read his 3 Easter books that I had just brought home from the library that day (I planned this part also. I thought that having three new books may keep his mind off of the pacis.) And, as you will see, the overall plan worked. We read the 3 books without Luke worrying about his numis at all. After reading, we began to say our prayers. At this point, Luke began asking for things - first, he asked to hold Daisy while he rocked (and I let him go get her) - he wanted to talk to me about the color of her shoes, her shirt, and her bow - he even recognized that she had a ponytail. After only a few minutes, Luke asked for his Minnie Mouse stuffed animal (so, again, I let him go get her.) Minnie didn't seem to quite soothe him either so he began asking for food. He asked me for a cheese stick. I knew there was no way that he was hungry because he ate almost a whole happy meal at McDonald's so I stayed strong and told him, "No" to the cheese stick.
Finally, the question that I dreaded hearing happened - Luke said, "I want my numis." Without much fuss or explanation, I reminded him that his numis were on their way to Baby Haley's house. He whined just a little and then relaxed. Within 10 minutes, he was out like a light! :) I couldn't believe it - no fit, no begging, no crying - just one quiet request and a little whine. I was super proud of him but knew that we could possibly have a long night ahead! :)
But....no, oh no....no long night for us - a great night! Luke slept from 9:00pm to 7:00am - no crying for Mommy, no getting out of his bed, no asking for his numi - he slept GREAT! I absolutely couldn't believe it!
Since last Wednesday night when this paci miracle occurred, Luke has slept from 9 to 7 EVERY NIGHT - no middle of the night wake ups. He is fighting his nap times without the numis a little but each day is getting better and better. Right now, Luke is in the best sleeping pattern that he has ever been in - he is staying up later, sleeping later, and taking a later nap but all of this will work great for the beach trip and for summer vacation. He is napping from 2 to 4 each day which allows us to have longer mornings to go do things and then he has the energy to stay up longer at night so dinner doesn't have to be rushed, we can play outside until dark, and Mommy and Daddy have time to squeeze in a run! (I am aiming to run a 5K with the stroller by May.) :)
Anyway - the paci disappearing plan worked and now, 5 days later, it still amazes me that Luke is doing so well. If I would have known that this transition would have been this easy, I would have taken this step months ago - but, then, would it have been this easy then??? Who knows?
All I know is this....my baby boy is growing up! Next project - getting rid of the diapers! Now, that, I will definitely wait until summer to begin that process! At this point, I just want to celebrate this milestone! As a mom I learned quickly - celebrate EACH DAY! :)
Here are some pictures of Luke playing at a few parks this past week....
Triangle Park in High Point...
Allen Jay Park in Archdale...
This one is funny!!
Here are the videos that go along with our paci disappearance plan...
Allen Jay Park in Archdale...
This one is funny!! 
Here are the videos that go along with our paci disappearance plan...#1 - Luke holding baby Haley.
#2 - Luke carrying baby Haley's box to the mailbox.
#3 - Luke playing with his new surprises from the Easter Bunny.
Stay tuned - I already have the pictures, video, and notes prepared for the Papa Dale - Part II. Maybe, just maybe, I will post again before the weekend. Check back soon! Have a great week!
Toddy
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