Bye Bye Binky Bye Bye

We had an unexpected visitor at our house this week. The Binky Fairy came to visit Nate! We've been talking alot recently about big boys vs babies and how big boys get to sleep in big boy beds and wear big boy pants and how they don't need binkies. Maybe some of it is really starting to sink in.

Two nights ago Ken and Nate were out playing with the flying disk (aka a Frisbee) in the backyard. Nate ran up to Ken to tell him a secret and said "Big boys don't need binkies Daddy." So Ken had a little conversation with Nate in which Nate agreed that he was a big boy and would not need a binky when he went to bed that night. Nate said it would be okay for the Binky Fairy to come a get his binkies and give them to little babies who were crying because they didn't have any binkies yet. Ken calls me outside to and relays the conversation to me. So quick as a flash, I run upstairs and sure enough, the Binky Fairy was there gathering the last two binkies out of Nate's crib and off his dresser. (That Binky Fairy must have good ears and fast wings to get there that quickly after an offer of binkies from a toddler.) A quick debate (and look through the guest room closet) led to the Binky Fairy leaving Nate a cool big boy collection of Cars in Nate's crib to replace the binkies.

I ran downstairs and let Nate know that he needed to come inside and see what the Binky Fairy had left him. He raced upstairs and was ecstatic to find the Cars waiting for him in his crib. We tore into them and he spent about 10 minutes lining them up and in choo-choo train formations.

All was good until right after his bath. The usual bath routine is Daddy gets Nate out of the tub,
we wrap him up in his froggy or doggie bath towel, and he runs into his room to get binky and naughtin. (Naughtin is a burp cloth that he named himself and sleeps with every night.) He just stopped in the hallway and had the saddest look on his face when he realized that there were no binkies in his crib. We managed to make it through the bedtime routine by continually talking up how awesome it was to be a big boy. (You know, big boys can ride bikes and play with cars and go swimming and talk. Yes, the most impressive thing about big boys according to Nate is that they can talk and babies cannot. He tells me this at least once a day.) There was some whining as he settled down for the night (it took about an hour instead of just a few minutes) but there were not tantrums or desperate calls out for binky. That night, we only had to go in to soothe him one time so I considered a very successful day one without binky.

Now most of the time Nate is not much of a morning person. I usually hear him fussing around in his crib for about 10 minutes or more before I know he is ready to actually get up. (I hate the mornings I actually have to wake him up to go the sitter's.) Well, that first morning without binky was a rough one for him. He was more crying that fussing so I went in as soon as I heard him up. At that point, he began kicking and flailing about his crib and crying out "I wanna be a baby! I don't wanna be a big boy!" I sat next to him and tried to comfort him (but of course he wouldn't allow me to actually touch him or pick him up) and finally after about 10 minutes he agreed to come downstairs to see if his new big boy Cars could go fast on his race track.

Since that morning, Nate has pretty much accepted that the binkies are in fact gone. He'll tell people that the Binky Fairy came to took his binkies to give to babies because he a big boy. And it is still taking him longer to settle down for naps and nighttime, but he's going to sleep on his own and sleeping for just about the same length of time. I'm so proud of my big boy but unexpectedly sad at the same time. Ever since he came home from the hospital we've spent the last cuddles of the evening in the glider, looking down at his sweet baby face with him sucking away on that little orange binky. I'll never get to see that again. I wonder if Bug (aka baby #2) will cherish a binky or not?

Here is the last picture we have of Nate with his binky. It was on the car ride home from Myrtle Beach just a couple of weeks ago.