Farewell to the "passau"

Anyone who's known K since birth knows that the girl has had some requirements, and those requirements have been pretty much non-negotiable. Once we got a system into place that would content her, we dared not disturb one element, lest the whole thing come crashing down. One great example of this rigor was the BEDTIME RETINUE.

In the early days, all components of the following list had to be in place to give us any hope that K would relent to sleep:

• Electronic musical device with remote
• Musical mirror
• Pillow
• Giant Pooh bear
• Baby Etana Hodges
• Baby Etana's blanket (pink)
• Baby Etana's 'passau' (pacifier)
• K's blanket (blue)
• K's pacifier
• Assortment of dolls and other items in a soft "frig"
• Door closed
• Shades drawn for darkness

Over time, we've been whittling down this list, to only the last 18 essential items, and recently we started suggesting to K that it was time for her to give up her pacifier. Baby Etana Hodges made the move a month or so ago, giving her passau to the "fairies" so that they could pass it on to a deserving baby. This made our lives much easier, not having to futilly search for K's passau AND baby Etana's if K happened to awaken in the night and need her bedding compliment to be reset.

So, we were pretty amazed this week when K began suggesting, of her own accord, that it was time for her to give her passau to the fairies herself. We had a few attempts and then K retracted. We'd hung the passau on a little hook near her window, but she' decided several times that she just wasn't ready. Finally, the night came, and she voluntarily parted with it! She reminded us that we'd given her the promise of a "big girl bed where [she] could go in and out!"

In the morning, she awoke to find an angel barbie hanging where the passau had been hung, and she was SO excited! "Look! Look! The fairies took my passau! Is that the fairy?" :)! We expected she'd recant her donation, but she's made no steps backward since giving it up. As always with K -- onward and upward, once she sets her mind to something!