Buh-Buh Graduation

Time for a little Pomp and Circumstance. Time to pop the bubbly wide open. Buh-buh's don't live here anymore (well, all but one...more on that later)!

Some of you are probably scratching your head saying "well, these people don't have babies...they have toddlers." DING! DING! DING! Your answer is correct. There's only one child here that refused to give it up, and that child was Olivia. Wait a minute. It is possible that her parents (i.e. - Josh and Jenna) didn't want to give it up. Or wait another minute. It's possible that they were just lazy. Mentioned many times in the past is Olivia's temperament: drama queen. Never knowing how she is going to be from one minute to the next is excruciating. Deciding on the proper time to take away the buh-buh was difficult, and we thought it out about five times prior to this. Something always seemed to get in the way: Olivia is not feeling well or Olivia might just gauge my eyes out at the mention of us saying we don't have one for her, or eh, it is just easier to give her the damn thing in order to keep the peace.

Anyway, we'd had it. I'd had it completely. She was reverting to wanting to be a baby again. Peeing in her pants every single time (thank goodness the poops made it in the potty). She was saying that she was a baby. Wanted to be held like a baby. And while she is still the baby in our family and I really wanted to hold on to her babyhood, it was more than time to let it go. After all, she is turning 3 this February. That was enough. I was done. And we made that decision last Thursday to take them away on Friday after daycare. In the past we'd give her a head's up about the buh-buhs (on those attempts which did not exactly work), but this time we didn't tell her and just sprung it on her on Friday when she asked for one in the evening.

We were nervous about the reaction. Would she scream at us for hours on end? Would she cry all night long? Seriously, will she come gauge my eyes out while I'm sleeping? Basically, the reaction was this: NOTHING. And the look on her face was: CONFUSION. We did receive some whines and a little bit of crying throughout the weekend along with some grumpy attitude, but it was easy. And we are kicking ourselves for not just doing it sooner.

Then we did what we did with Bea. The heaven story. People, the heaven story has gotten us through the removal of buh-buhs and diapers. And we will probably use it when the time comes to get rid of lovies and blankies. Read about the heaven story here. It saved us. I'm not sure of anything else that would have worked. The next day the buh-buh fairy brought Olivia like her hundredth play baby in exchange for the buh-buhs. With Olivia, we even bypassed the "safe" Nuby sippy cup that seriously could pass for a bottle. She's on the straight-up sippy cup now.

So, what happened to all the bottles and Nuby's? Josh threw most of them away. I have one of the Dr. Brown's saved. Just the bottle part of it. The ounces are clearly labeled. I've found a good use for the bottle in making mixed drinks. You know...an ounce of tequila here and an ounce of pomegranate juice there...the bottle makes it easy to get the right amount of ingredients for cocktails and to do the mixing all at once...I bet you didn't see that tip coming!

Anyway, congratulations Olivia (with new baby from buh-buh fairy)! You have officially graduated to being a little girl: