big girls

This week marked milestones for both girls: Molly gave up the pacifier & Clara figured out how to bring her hands together.

It's been three nights for Molly - so far we're doing alright. When she started chewing through her pacifiers late last summer we struck a deal with her: when she chews a hole in the pacifier, we throw it away. And we're not getting any more (at one point when we discussed the deal Molly replied with "yeah, and then you can go to the pacifier store and get another one"). There were a couple close calls this fall when we got down to one or two pacifiers and none of us were really ready to kick the habit. I realized we'd painted ourselves in a corner and went to the store to try to find replica's of pacifiers from the past. We only had to use one "replica" and I don't think Molly really bought our story that we found one of her old pacifiers. But she went along with it.

Either way, Zach cut the cord, so to speak, a three nights ago when she really had chewed through her last pacifier. He got buy-in from her, she threw it away, they talked about what that meant, and she went to sleep. Last night when I put her to bed she asked for a pacifier and I reminded her that we were done with them. Tonight when Zach put her to bed she started to ask for a pacifier and then remembered that there were none. In all, I think I'm more worried about it than she is, but we'll see what happens in the next few days. I also worried that she'd be frustrated with Clara having a pacifier. I even tried to get Clara to use a pacifier that looks nothing like Molly's, but she actually prefers one of Molly's old pacifiers. Don't ask me how that happened, but Molly either doesn't realize it's one of hers or doesn't mind. And, given how sweet Molly has been with Clara recently it very well may be the later.