No more pacifiers

Today's the day. The day we ditched our pacis. The twins will be 3 in May and I'd been meaning to get rid of the beloved pacifiers for a while now. I decided February 1st was as good a day as any. The past few days we've been trying to prepare them for what was coming and also talking up the fact the they are such big kids now. We told them that they'd get to trade in their pacis at Target for new toys. They seemed excited and I briefly thought, this is going to be easy. Wrong. Naptime was tough. Gracie decided that without a paci she wouldn't nap. So she sat in her bed and alternated between crying for her paci and singing Disney songs at the top of her lungs. Nathan was so sad. The boy loves he paci. He slept with 2 every night. One in his mouth and one in his hand. He cried himself to sleep and mama's heart broke into a zillion pieces.
After nap we headed to Target to get some new toys. Nathan knew he want a Green Lantern Imaginext toy. I assumed that Gracie would get some sort of cute, little stuffed animal. I was right. Except, honestly, it's not very cute. She chose a stuffed chihuahua. I was going to try to persuade her to choose someone else but then I saw that it was on sale for $3.99. Sold. We picked up a few more things and then headed to the check out.


I whispered to the cashier that they were giving up their pacifiers and that they'd be handing them to her as payment for their new toys. She looked a little confused but followed my lead. Gracie handed her the bag of pacis and I told them to say good bye and that they were big kids that didn't need pacis anymore. They happily said together, "bye bye, pacis!" Then I cried. Yup. Right there in Target. The twins were perfectly happy and I was distraught. The very kind cashier for sure thought I was nuts. I don't blame her. I was asking her to accept pacifiers as payment, I was taking pictures of my children with their new toys and crying about it all.
Giving up the pacis has been an unexpectedly hard transition for me. It makes me sad to see my babies turning into to big kids but at the same time it makes me proud and excited. We're ready for ballet, swim lessons, karate, soccer, preschool, and twin beds but that means we're ready to give up cribs, pacis, diapers, mommy&me classes, and footie pajamas. Sad and happy all at the same time. They're little bodies are changing from chubby rolly poly babies to skinny bean pole kids. They're finally out if 24m clothes. They have all sorts of opinions on what they wear, eat, watch and do. Ditching the pacis just makes the whole growing up thing seem so real.