Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

I intended to write this email last night after Paela went to sleep. Instead, Rebecca found me asleep on the floor next to Paela's bed at 9:30. There is a reason for this:

On Saturday we threw a pacifier party for Paela. It wasn't because either Rebecca or I was ready to move onto the next developmental stage, but because Paela had finally chewed through her last pacifier. At this point, neither Rebecca or I were willing to go buy new pacifiers for an (almost) 2 1/2 year old. So, instead we decided to help her give up the pacifier in place for a new comfort object.

We invited Camilla and Victor over to celebrate pacifiers. We let Paela have the pacifier all day long. We talked about how wonderful it had been to have a pacifier and how we can say good-bye. We made her favorite food (rice) and had lots of balloons. Then, we went to the Disney store.

The idea was to have Paela understand that she could trade her pacifier for a different physical object. We tried our best to clearly explain that this was a permanent trade and she decided she was going to trade her pacifier for a stuffed winnie the pooh bear AND a stuffed roo. She got two because it was a buy-one-get-one-free stuffed animals. I am under the impression that she understood this arrangement, but that didn't prevent her from having buyer's remorse.

Things went smoothly to begin with. Amazing enough, Paela's favorite is Roo, not Pooh bear. However, she didn't want to sleep with them at night, pushed them out of bed but still managed to fall asleep without a pacifier. It wasn't until one in the morning that she woke up crying and was inconsolable for about an hour and a half. It wasn't that she demanded to have her pacifier back, but that she couldn't find any way to help herself fall back to sleep. I tried everything I could think of -- bringing her into our own bed was the worst idea because that only made her wide awake. Quiet, but wide awake. Eventually, I went back into her bedroom with her. She laid down on her bed and I slept on the floor next to her. And she went back to sleep.

In retrospective thought, I realize this was a really bad idea to do the night before I had a phone interview. But I had one interview and multiple more coming up this week at the CAA conference. This means that Rebecca and crew are going to be on their own from Wednesday to Saturday and best of luck to them. We tried to work out how they could come along, but couldn't afford it. 

This past week, Paela got over her cold, but Rebecca still has a rough-sounding cough. She has postponed going to the doctor, under the impression that it is getting better. I only hope it doesn't turn into pneumonia. We had a fair amount of library time. And our local librarian has a difficult time recommending books suitable for Paela. Paela finds her own good books. And we read them over and over and over again. We steadily build a large pile of picture books we have read, trying to find the ones that Paela will request to read again.

Rebecca finished our taxes. And after spending all her free time on them, we found out that being a state employee of Massachusetts (which I am) means you are not able to eFile. Why? I don't know, but without a state employee ID number, you can't. So we printed the 60+ pages and mailed it off.

And that brings us to last night. To help Paela calmly go to bed, I fell asleep on the floor next to her bed. It wasn't intended; I was only there to help her stay in bed. She wanted to run around like a crazy child. Instead of sleeping with the objects she had 'purchased' with her pacifier, she preferred to cuddle with her older stuffed animals. She plays with Pooh and Roo all day long, but doesn't want them in bed with her. After Rebecca and I went to bed, we didn't hear a peep from her all night long. So, I guess she gave up her pacifier?