The Binky Fairy

The first and last binky:  the mute button. Here she is at 2 months old with the same binky we put out for the binky fairy over 3 years later.

 One exciting milestone that (unfortunately) happened during Jimmy and Marian's visit in the middle of May was the Binky Fairy's visit to our house. It started when I got a phone call from Valerie's school on Friday afternoon. She had chewed through her binky (pacifier) at school and they wanted me to send in a new one. For a pretty long time she had only been allowed to have a binky during naps and at night, and at almost 3.5, I knew it was getting to be time to say goodbye to the binky for good, but I wasn't in a huge hurry, because the binky was partially responsible for Valerie being a wonderful sleeper and the easiest child in the world to put to bed. In fact she would often put herself down for a nap or to bed because she just wanted her binky time.

But, all good things must come to an end, and for us the chewing of the binky brought on the end. We had several binkies over the years for her, but we often lost them traveling, and in May we were down to just two - one at home and one at school. I refused to buy more of them with her nearing 3.5 and knowing we would be pulling the plug, so to speak, soon enough. She chewed completely through the one at school and the tip came off, which is a huge choking hazard, and her binky at home was also mostly chewed through, but hanging on by a thread. I knew the chewing through of the school binky was our signal to say goodbye to the binky for good.

It was terrible timing to make a huge change to our routine with our friends visiting for the weekend, but I felt we had no choice to delay it any longer. The binky was just not safe and it had to go. I googled some ideas for how to get rid of the pacifier and decided to go with the Binky Fairy approach, which I think turned out to be very successful for us. I bought a light-up magic wand, some loose glitter, and some candy at the drugstore, and I started on Friday by telling Valerie the legend of the Binky Fairy, who would be coming to our house on Saturday night, taking the binky, and replacing it with candy and a toy, similar to the way the Tooth Fairy takes a lost tooth and leaves money in its place. She had one last night on Friday with the binky and Saturday night she would bid it farewell and place it out on the front step for the Binky Fairy.

As expected, she was enchanted by the idea of the Binky Fairy and couldn't wait to leave her binky out. She sweetly told her binky good-bye on Saturday night and put it out on the front step, and went to bed.

Within a minute or so of going to bed, she began to cry that she wanted her binky. Okay. So she didn't quite grasp the concept that binky was GONE for good. She cried for a while and we laid down with her for a while until she finally fell asleep. The transition was not as easy as I had hoped. In the morning she got to go outside and find the magic wand and candy the Binky Fairy left for her - and glitter! There was glitter where the Binky Fairy had been! So magical. She asked lots of questions and was very excited about her new wand.

The next night, she got to take her new wand to bed, which was cool, but she still didn't totally understand binky being gone for good, and she cried and cried and took a long time to fall asleep. This went on for the next couple of nights and after about 4 nights she started to understand and went to sleep more easily. They were a scary four nights for us as we wondered if we had reached the permanent end of our easy-to-sleep child! Rich was NOT happy about my hard stance on the end of the binky but we persevered and all was well in the end. Valerie adjusted and now she doesn't ask for her binky anymore. Her requests got less and less frequent as the weeks and months went by, and they seem to have finally stopped completely.

Sometimes I wonder if we should have let her keep it longer until she was really fine with giving it up, but I remind myself that it was just not safe for her to have a binky anymore since she would chew right through them. We did the right thing, and it was a bit painful, but we made it through and our great sleeper is still a wonderful sleeper, although she never puts herself down for a nap anymore like she did. Naps on the weekends are rare now, but the upside is that we don't have to plan around naptime anymore, which is quite nice. She gets plenty of quiet time watching TV shows instead... I know, bad parenting alert. She definitely gets too much screen time, but.... oh well. She loves her shows and it doesn't seem to be hindering her development at all. I'm so proud of my big girl, getting more grown up and articulate and sweet by the day.

Valerie update: pink flowers, stuttering, silly games with Daddy

Valerie has been saying so many funny things lately, I want to try and write them down before I forget. She cracked me up the other day talking about the characters from Madagascar, Alex the lion, and Marty the zebra - and I asked her what the giraffe's name is (the correct answer is Melman) and she said "Helmet."  She is really, really into movies right now, and especially the story of Cinderella (the books and movies). I think they are very real to her. Most nights when we are tucking her into bed, she starts talking about Cinderella's sisters tearing and ripping her pink dress to shreds, and then Cinderella getting a blue dress. That part made the most impact on her, along with Lucifer the cat.

She loves cats, but Lucifer is scary - along with all shadows, deep voices, and loud noises. Including her own shadow, and when Rich sings in a low voice. She is so scared of everything. When we were walking home from the park last night as it was getting dark, we saw the outline of a mom lifting up and hugging her child in front of a restaurant. Valerie was scared of them because it was dark. It will be interesting to see how she does with Halloween coming up. We are planning on throwing a Halloween party and I hope our decorations won't be too scary for her. There is a house on our street with lots of spiders, bats and skeletons up, and she doesn't seem to be afraid of that; she loves it. We will try to steer clear of deep voices and loud noises and I think she'll be fine.

One of her favorite things is smelling all the flowers whenever we walk past them, with a particular focus on pink flowers. She gets so excited about pink flowers, and we often play "I spy," and she always spies with her little eye "something pink" and it's always something pink she's wearing, or pink flowers if there are any to be found. I had to yell at her a couple times for plucking flowers in our front yard, so now she knows not to pluck them, but she will pick up the ones that have fallen on the ground and carry them to and from school with her. And then toss them in a garden somewhere. She even loves the fake flowers we have in our house and sometimes asks if she can hold them. So sweet. One day we went for a walk down the main street downtown smelling all the flowers, and she was really shoving her nose into them and had yellow pollen all over her nose and upper lip. Now she thinks her nose turns the color of whatever flower she is smelling - usually pink. "Look Mommy, my nose is pink!" One of these days I will get a real pink bouquet just for her, I think she will love it.

It's also really cute when we play "I spy," and she spies something pink and then says "Mommy, now you spy, now you spy!"

She started sleeping in her big girl bed at the end of January this year, soon after turning two, and I wondered how long it would be before she would learn she could get out of bed and leave her room by herself. I finally got my answer! Sometime in September she started getting up from her nap, opening the door and coming out to find us. But only sometimes. She still lays in her bed and calls for Mommy and Daddy most of the time. So, the answer may be about 8 months to start getting out of bed by herself, but still only on occasion.

Her most amazing trick these days is memorizing her favorite books, which right now are Daisy's Birthday Party, Cinderella and the Silver Slippers. She can nearly recite the first two in their entirety and is just starting to work on the third.

She had a few episodes of stuttering a week or two ago. Very strange and unlike her, she is such a verbal and articulate talker for her age. She would get stuck on simple words, like I and say I- I- I- I- I- and would get pretty frustrated several times in one sentence. It was certainly frustrating to listen to. We didn't think it was cause for concern but we googled stuttering, of course, to see what the experts suggested. Nothing surprising, but we learned not to finish her words for her, wait patiently, and don't make her repeat herself or try again. I also read that I should try to speak more slowly, which makes sense because I probably read and talk too fast sometimes. I started making an effort to talk and especially to read more slowly to her. I'm not sure if it made a difference but fortunately the stuttering only lasted a couple of days and dissipated.




Valerie loves playing silly games with Daddy. She thinks her daddy is just the most hilarious guy in the world, up there with Elmo, Mickey and "Helmet" the giraffe. They love playing the whisper game, where they sneak around the house talking in whispers. They sneak up on Mommy, or go quietly searching for objects. I don't remember ever doing that as a child, but luckily Rich knew about that one, because boy is it fun. They play patty cake at super fast, super slow and regular speeds, and usually bake a cake for Valerie and Daddy. We also just showed her the hand-slap game, which is apparently also known as red hands. She loves watching Mommy and Daddy play and is just learning how to play, although her reaction time may need a little work. She also loves games of using her hand over her (or daddy's) mouth to make funny sounds (ie, wa wa wa wa). She is still a fan of peek-a-boo, or as we call it, "where's Valerie?" The simplest games have her hysterical with laughter, and her laugh is definitely the cutest sound I can imagine in the world.

Our biggest struggle with her is limiting screen time. Nothing new there. She would watch shows every minute of every day if we let her. Her favorite shows right now are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Road Rally, Winnie the Pooh, Dinosaur Train, Super Why!, Curious George, Dora the Explorer and Elmo's world, and her favorite movies are Cars, Madagascar, Cinderella, Frozen and the baby einstein baby signs DVD. Cinderella is even a little too scary for her... she loves that baby einstein DVD. It's so soothing. I just got Tangled from the library for her and I can't wait to show her that one... I hope it won't be too scary.

I had to smile when I dropped her off at school this morning and she immediately went up to an older girl and complimented her red jacket with a fur-lined hood: "I like your jacket! It's so pretty!  I really like it." I couldn't believe how grown-up she was acting; not jealous or trying to take the girl's jacket, just giving her sweet, enthusiastic compliments. She sometimes tells me she likes my jewelry or my dress when I am dressed up but this was the first time I've heard her compliment a classmate. Such a proud moment!

She keeps growing so fast and doing and saying new things every day.... it's all I can do to try and record as much as I can. I know there is already so much I've forgotten. How quickly the days fly by and turn little babies into big kids!

First Words

This is the most exciting time in a mom's life.  Well. So far.  For me. My daughter will be 17 months old this Friday.  What's so exciting at 17 months? WORDS. Communication. Talking!!!

There is absolutely nothing like hearing real actual words come out of your baby's mouth.  It is the cutest and most miraculous sound in the world. It starts gradually and it's hard to put your finger on the exact moment it starts.  For Valerie, it started with animal sounds. Specifically, moo. The first thing she ever said that meant something was while looking at pictures of cows, toy cows and her stuffed cow.  It was a really energetic shout when you asked her what a cow says: "Boooooooo!"

I'm not counting moo as her first word though since I'm not sure it's technically a word. Looking back, I am going to say that Valerie's first real word was bye-bye, although I wasn't there the first time she said it.  We heard from her teachers at school one day that she had said bye-bye to one of them. It wasn't long before we heard it for ourselves! After over a year of babbling and nonsense syllables... to get a real word response was so amazing. Even just to have a word parroted back to you for the first time! Amazing.

I started writing down the words she knew as I figured them out to get an idea of how many there were. There were maybe 10 animal sounds, 10 real words and 5-10 signs when I first started keeping track. She likes signing a lot.  She uses the signs for baby, mama, daddy, dog, eat, more, ball, milk, please and flower all the time. She can say baby, mama, daddy, and ball as well, but she doesn't say eat, more, milk, please or flower yet.  Kind of interesting. I'm not exactly sure why some of the words and signs go together so easily and others she only signs.

It's absolutely fascinating to watch her learn at this age. Every day is some new discovery, for her and for us as her parents. It's a means for her personality to emerge, bit by bit, like seeing the light come on inside. When she wakes up in the morning, sometimes she will recite some of her words.  "Mama, daddy, huff-huff (dog), all done!"

She LOVES babies and dogs. We do not have either in our house (besides her) but she goes bananas whenever she sees one. Dogs she prefers in theory or at a distance. When they come very close sometimes they are a little scary, although she warms up over time. Babies are another story. She loves to grab and kiss babies repeatedly if given the opportunity. She likes kids her age and older, too, but her favorites are the littlest babies.  She vigorously makes the sign for baby, rocking her arms back and forth, and has gotten pretty good at saying "beebee." It started out as "ba" at first, then baba, and now beebee.

One of her funniest quirks is cat.  According to Valerie, instead of meow, cats say "aieee!" We keep teaching meow and at some point she will learn to say meow but I hope it doesn't happen too soon. It cracks me up when she chases my mom's cat saying "aieeee!"

Apple was a fun one the first time she said it. I was feeding her applesauce at dinner and said, "Ap-ple," very deliberately. And she said it back! "Ap-ple."  It was the first time I ever heard her repeat back a word to me so purposefully. I teared up I was so surprised and excited.

She finally, FINALLY learned my favorite word in the past few weeks.  The most beautiful word there is to come out of your baby's mouth: "Mama." Now it's one of her favorites.  When she comes home from school she says mama, mama, mama, mama until she finds me. Then she quickly moves on to gagoo (cracker), gagoo, gagoo, gagoo..... as in, get me a snack mama. Mama is still pretty much chopped liver.  But I will take it! It felt like so long I waited for her to say that one. I still fill up with sunshine every time she says it.

This morning when I was getting her ready for school she was being so sweet, her usual sunny morning self. She was laying on her changing pad and I sang her a good morning song and kicked her legs around to the beat.  She loved it.  She gave me a huge smile and a reverent, "Mommm-myyyy."
 I could not stop smiling all day, thinking of that sweet smile and that "mommmmyyy."  She ADORED her mama in that moment. I could have cried.

These are the days, friends. These are the days of our lives. These are the moments to remember.