Goodbye old friend... Hello new friend - 5/22/10

For anyone who knows Brooklyn you know that she has a special love connection for her pacifier. They have been best friends since birth. We decided that since she is now a big girl and sleeps in her big girl bed, that it might be time to say goodbye to her good friend. I always felt bad just taking my girls pacifiers away from them with no warning, or cutting the tops off, or having them throw them in the garbage. So when Kaylee was little I came up with a nicer way to take it away from her which worked really good. It also worked really good with Courtney so I decided to give it a try with Brooklyn as well. I wasn't sure how this was going to go for her because she can be a bit more stubborn and is much more attached to her beloved paci than the other girls were, but I decided to give it a try. So after we left the Mormon Battalion we headed over to the Build-A-Bear workshop where we let her pick out any animal she wanted. Before they put the stuffing in it she said bye bye to her long time friend and tucked it safely inside. Now she has a new friend to love and cuddle. She likes that she can still feel it inside the belly of her bear. There have been a few times that she has asked for it, but no crying fits. When she asks for it now we just tell her that instead of sucking on her paci, she now gets to hug her paci. That seems to make her happy, she just gives it an extra squeeze and goes on with whatever she is doing at the time. SUCCESS!!!!!

Here she is waiting in line with the purple bear she chose.
Saying goodbye to paci and tucking it safely inside her new friend.

She thought it was really cool getting to step on the peddle while her bear got filled with it's stuffing.

Then it was off to the bathtub station where she blew off all the extra fur and gave it a nice brushing.

She insisted that she didn't want any clothes on it (which was fine with me since that made it cheaper) so we went right over to the computer area where she gave her bear and name and printed out it's birth certificate. She named it Sparkly, which she chose all by herself.

Giving it a nice little squeeze outside the store.

Finally it was time to head home with her new friend.