Life in the Clark Lane: The End of an Era

It's been almost two weeks now since Lilly's ones have been retired. Jim and I had nothing against her holding onto her one for as long as she wanted, but unfortunately she was stuffing so much of it in her mouth and keeping it in her mouth while she was asleep, which could lead to developmental problems with her jaw and teeth further down the road. Her pediatrician suggested that we pack it away with her baby things and explain what we were doing, but we felt that was a bit too harsh since she loves her one so much. So, we had slowly been phasing it out over the past month, explaining to her that she couldn't put it in her mouth anymore as it was making her cough (after all, it couldn't be helping her get over whatever lingering cold she has had on and off for the past month). She understood this so well that when we were talking to Mum the other day on Skype, who contracted whatever virus Lilly had while she was here, Lilly said, "Gigi, I think you have to stop putting blankets in your mouth if you want your cough to go away."

We stopped taking it in the car and stroller with us. It was only for rest time and bedtime. Car rides and walks in the stroller have become chattier, if that was even possible. When Mum and Dad were up visiting a few weeks ago, Papa stopped pretending he was going to steal her one and the focus shifted to her stuffed animals. While Lilly understood that we weren't taking it out with us, her instinct was to keep putting it in her mouth while she was sleeping and so Jim and I found ourselves in her room multiple times a night taking it out of her mouth. We quickly realized that this wasn't going to work, so about two weeks ago during a rest time, I told her that all her ones were dirty, and she had her nap without it. We said the same thing that night, and since then, she hasn't really asked for it. The only time that Lilly asks about her one is when I bring out a clean load of laundry to fold...without fail, this little three year old voice will say, "Mum, is there a clean one in there?" It makes my stomach drop every time. The ones are packed away, and we'll give them back to her one day and tell her stories and show her pictures about how much she loved them and how she used to rank them as "one", "two" "cupcake one" and "daisy's one". We'll show her this blog entry that I wrote before early in 2011 when we couldn't imagine Lilly without her one.