Bye-Bye To Our Passys

Wednesday August 6, 2008 the girls said goodbye to something that has been very special to them for their whole life, their passys. Their passy comforted them the first day that they were born, their first day of school, at numerous "scary" Dr. appointments (including when they were casted for their DOC Bands, above Ella Cate circa December 2006), and so many nights when it was so hard for them to fall asleep. Passys saved Sam and I from loosing our minds on more than one occasion, quieted noisy girls in restaurants and shopping centers, and made many car rides bearable. The passy was good to have around!
However, the girls will celebrate their 1/2 birthday one week from today, and they will be big 2 and a half year olds! ; ) Their Dr. told me 6 months ago that we should get rid of the passy a.s.a.p., and I have watched as the girls have seemed to become more attached to the passy over the last couple of months. I knew that this needed to be a battle that we conquered before I started back to work on August 18.
Here are some more old pictures of the girl/passy relationship!

Emma Claire at her 18 month old Dr appointment August 2007...lovin that passy

Ella Cate at the same 18 month old Dr appointment comforted by passy AND Raffi

The girls at their 2 year check up right after the Dr recommended getting rid of the passy!
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While Cade and I were watching Super Nanny together of months ago we saw a great little strategy at work. Super Nanny had a 3 year old boy that needed to give up his passy so she had him gather up all of his passys and put them in a large envelope addressed to "The Passy Fairy". They then put the envelope in the mail, and overnight The Passy Fairy came to get the passys and left the child a prize. I immediately knew that this would be what we would do to take the girls' passys away. After a couple of months of procrastinating the Passy Fairy strategy went through (with quite a few hitches) last night.
Sorry that the girls are shirtless...they were hot so they took their shirts off and I didn't bother to put their shirt back on...if you think that it looks tacky my husband agrees with you!

After gathering all the passys Carson held the envelope so that Ella Cate could drop a passy in.

Emmy saying goodbye to one of many passys

The envelope addressed to The Passy Fairy

The girls getting ready to carry their envelope to the mailbox

I thought that they looked so sweet...they were being SUCH big girls!

Emmy lifting the envelope into the mailbox

Ellie lifting her passys into the mailbox...our neighbors found out what was going on, and they were all cheering for the girls. ; )

Saying "bye-bye" to their passys

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Fast forward an hour or so to bedtime...Ella Cate was having a mega-meltdown that lasted quite awhile.

Daddy explaining that Ellie would have a surprise when she woke up...Carson was very into this whole experience.

Ella Cate finally calmed down and held onto Raffi for dear life. She kept biting him. I think that she did this because she is used to sucking her passy while putting Raffi up to her nose. This made me sad. ; ( I had almost given them their passys back at least 5 times by this point.

Emmy's look sums up her feelings about going to bed without her passy.

Here is what The Passy Fairy found in the mailbox

...and what she left for my sweet big girls...they were sooo excited this morning

The Passy fairy also left Beanie Babies in the mailbox, and "fairy dust" all in our yard.

Emmy was very proud of her scooter and Beanie Baby...

and so was Ella Cate.

The girls have done pretty good with all of this. They had a few times today when they fussed for their passy. They especially missed it while we were en route to The Colony to meet Chels at Hawaiian Falls. The car was always a place that I let them have their passys. At one point Ella was fussing so badly that I told her that if she got her passy back she would have to give back her prizes. She threw me a curve and told me she didn't want the prizes, she wanted her passy. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, and I'm pretty sure that by this time next week they won't remember what it felt like to suck a passy!