Big girls don't cry....

Well, that's how the saying goes...but that's not entirely true. You see...about a month ago we finally decided it was time to get rid of the Paci. It was actually waaaay over time, but I have to be honest...we were totally dreading taking away this small piece of plastic that had been in Marissa's life since Day 1. She was attached, very attached. So, needless to say...there was always some excuse we could find to just "keep it for a couple more weeks". Well, the time had come...I followed in the footsteps of some other stories I had heard and decided to be a little sneaky. We started by telling Marissa that sometimes when kids get so big, they just suck the ends right off their paci when they are sleeping, then one day during naptime, I snuck in there with a pair of scissors and snipped the end right off, put it back in her bed and got out of there :) I then sent Russell a text that said, "the Paci is gone." and he replied, "Nooooooooo!" Haha. Anyway, the deed was done and she woke up, came downstairs, not crying but kind of whimpering and said, "Mommy, my paci is broke!" I then proceeded to remind her about being so big she sucked the end right off and told her what a big girl she is now!! And that was it. I thought, man this is so easy...we should have done this months ago.

Ha! That was until bedtime. That's when the real meltdown began. There was no consoling this girl...she wanted her paci and nothing else. I kept telling her over and over that she is a big girl now and I was so proud of her....So I started racking my brain trying to think of fun things that "big girls" get to do. My first thought was piercing her ears, but no. That's her decision to make, not mine. I finally remembered how much she loves painting her fingers and toes! A pedicure!! So, I told her all about going to a special store to get your toes painted and how they can even put a fun design on them! She loved the idea and I finally calmed her down enough that she would lay down, but still wanted her daddy to fall asleep with her. :)

So, the next day, I loaded Marissa up and off we went to The Pink Nail Bar. We walked in and Marissa sees these huge, pink butterfly chairs and is sooooo excited!! She picks out her color, which started as blue, but then changed to pink :) We got her in the chair and the very sweet lady gave her a bag of animal crackers to snack on and the pampering began!


Look how cute those chairs are!!! She looks so big in these pictures :(

She had her legs wrapped with warm towels and the pink polish looked so pretty!

The finished product! Complete with butterflies!!

My big, paci-free, girl!!! (sorry for the quality of the pics, they were taken with my phone!) She was so proud of her toes and showed them off to everyone she knew!!

So there you have it...the long, drawn out saga of how we got rid of Marissa's first love....the paci. So you see...big girls do cry but they also get pedicures which, on a bad day, really can make almost anything better:) Next on the list...Allie's thumb. Pretty sure cutting the end off that isn't going to work...