Bye Bye, Baby

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This is the picture that has been on our desktop the past few weeks.  If you look closely, you can see Jaden's chunky thighs; I remember them clearly and miss them so much!  Believe it or not, Jaden was only about 5 months old here (he was a big boy), and Micah was about 2 1/2.

Jaden's pacifier is with him in so many pictures; he has loved it so much.

However, he is turning three on May 16th, and we know we need to wean him off of it.  On Wednesday afternoon we lost the pacifier and decided that we might as well use that as an opportunity to wean him.  But the binky has been my friend, the one thing I could depend on when Jaden was screaming or tired and cranky, or was sad to be away from me.  It always immediately made him calm and happy.

On Wednesday night he fell asleep without it, simply because he was so tired.  On Thursday he fell asleep on the way home from soccer practice (without it), so it wasn't an issue.  Last night he was again tired enough, but he did cry for it for about 10 minutes.  Today was the hardest.  He would not take his nap without it and ended up keeping Micah up as well.  Tonight I decided to give it back to him with the end snipped off of the tip.  I figured that way he could at least hold it for comfort.  He asked a lot of questions:

"What happened to my binky, mommy?  Why is there a hole in it?  Did the kitty do that?"   He just ran out of his room and threw it in the trash.  :(

I'm sad that this phase is over.  Almost as sad as when I gave up breastfeeding him, because it marks a new chapter. We are leaving the baby-phase behind altogether and my baby is turning 3!  Jaden's last official picture of him with his binky (on Tuesday):

Micah is also entering a new chapter in life; we went to his Kindergarten round-up last Monday.

He was a little apprehensive and scared at first but warmed up once all the other kids arrived.  He did great and is excited to start in the Fall.  We started a reading program with him at home that a friend recommended (Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons):

Micah has never let me teach him anything before and has resisted every effort I have made. Yet I tried something new this time; I downloaded a reward chart from Chuck E Cheese (his new favorite place), and we are giving him a sticker for each day he completes a lesson.  After 2 weeks, he gets to turn in his chart and they will give him 10 free tokens.  He is so excited.  I also allow him to play online video games for about 10 minutes when he's finished  (www.happymeal.com - can you tell where we've been frequenting lately?), and he looks forward to that all day.  (Chuck E Cheese also has a lot of other great reward charts as well):

My boys are leaving their baby days behind, but this new phase is fun too. Well, not so fun at bedtimes with no binky, but hopefully that will change soon!