A Very Big Day for a Very Big Girl ⇒
Today, at age three years and four months, Elise decided to give up her sucky. I made a deal with her that we would go to Build a Bear (well, a knock-off at Walmart) when she was too big for her sucky. Today was the big day. Last time we were at WM buying groceries, she went into the stuffy shop and a dragon caught her eye. Today she said she was ready to go get the dragon.
The anti-sucky campaign was aided by a neat book I got out of the library, quite by accident I might add, called I'm Big Enough which tells the tale of a bunny named Bean who gives up her blankie. Actually, she misplaces it when she hides it somewhere safe so her parents won't take it from her. The first little while is difficult but then she forgets about Blankie until one spring day she comes across a baby fox sleeping happily with Blankie (this is crucial to my story--read on) and realizes she IS too big for blankie.
Away, off Elise and I went and she walked right up to the dragon and picked it up. I took a little look at it and had to open my big mouth to say "hmmm. He doesn't look very friendly." Normally, I wouldn't have said anything, I didn't care what kind of animal she picked, but she has been a bit scared of things lately and I was worried that once he was all stuffed up, he would make her uneasy which would completely ruin the efforts at bedtime. She looked at the dragon and instantly saw what I meant, or at least trusted my opinion. I tried to cover my tracks and looked at all the dragons to see if any looked friendlier but she didn't like any of them. So she looked around some more and finally settled on a small panda.
She stuffed him at the machine then chose a star to put inside him. The lady at the shop made a lovely production of getting her to put the star to her forehead and think happy thoughts, rub it on her knee so panda wouldn't get any owies, rub it on her elbow so panda would be funny and give it a kiss so that panda would be filled with love. Awwwww! Then we chose a little outfit for her (she is a GIRL panda). Et voila! Instant Sucky Replacement,
Ok ladies, get out your tissues.
Then it was time to pay. I gave Elise her sucky and the sales associate had an adoption certificate all rolled up in one hand and opened her other hand for Elise and my big girl proudly handed her sucky over and said to please give it to the baby fox.
She named the panda Julie (I personally wanted to name it Sucky)
She didn't mentioned the sucky all evening and she went to bed without a single tear shed. She came out once after about 1 minute and wanted a little cuddle but she often does that so I'm not sure it was related to the sucky thing. We'll see how it goes in the middle of the night.
Sucky was the last baby thing she was holding onto. I am sad to see it go, even though it's what I wanted and knew the day was inevitable. She just won't look the same without it sleeping in her bed.