Sousou intervention

Last week I finished one big project and complete most of the work for the other project. I was ready to go back to being a good mom, instead of a stressed out, working all the time - barely surviving mom. So what does a good mom do? Take their kids swimming( check) play games with their kids, ( check) make muffins ( mmm check), clean and organize her house ( right -getting to it and help their kids grow up. In this case - it was time to help Eve give up her pacifyer - known affectionately as her sousou.

The history of sousous addictions in our family is ironic. Both Jackie and Eve refused their sousou early on. They also refused bottles. I continually tried to introduce the pacifyer, hoping it was a "gateway drug" to being bottle fed. It was not. I was never successful in getting them to take a bottle, I was successful in getting both of them completely addicted to what the english refer to as a dummy.

For a while we were all happy with the pacifyer. We had something to offer whent he kids were upset. Something to stop them from screaming in church, or in the car, or in the grocery store. But eventually - they get too old for it. Eventually, it drives us crazy. Eventually, we wonder why we ever gave them that thing in the first place. Then, it is time to get them to give it up.

With Jackie, we tried taking her sousou away twice, unsuccessfully. Each time she cried, literally all night and into the next day and we decided she just wasn't ready for it. Then we heard of the sousou fairy, a lesser known fairly that will take a child's pacifyers and leave a grown up toy. We tried it with Jackie. Each time she would cry for her sousou, she would hold the pollypocket that the sousou fairy brought her. It helped, and she has been sousou clean for three years now.

Now it is Eve's turn. She is turning three is June and is completely addicted to her sousou. So much so, that she will ask for naps, just so she can have her sousou fix. The whole family was involved in her sousou intervention. Alice helped pick out the sousou fairy toy. Jackie and Alice decorated bags to put her sousous in. We had a ceremony where she thanked her sousou, and we told her the story of the sousou fairy - how she has the power to take all the love and comfort a baby gets from their pacifyer and puts it in to the big kid toy she leaves. The left over love and comfort she sends to someone who is sad or scared to help them. Alice and Jackie helped Eve put her sousous in the bags they had made. They then offered them to the sousou fairy and brought back a toy. ( Though, they were a little excited, and actually forgot to take the pacifyers out - for a second Eve thought she'd get the toy and the sousous - but we promptly put them back in the bag, and gave them to Andrew - with the direction to put them where I couldn't find them)

That was Tuesday night. When it was time for bed, the trouble started. Where Jackie cried for her sousou and held her pollypocket close to her. Eve - more a women of action - screamed for her sousou and threw her toy at my head (her aim was good). There was a moment when she was pleading " I no big girl, I a baby, I need sousous". It made me want to cry, and Alice and Jackie felt that way too.

She did manage to get to sleep, watching tv with me. Then in the middle of the night, by a cruel twist of fate -she woke up coughing that dry, barking croupy cough. She was having trouble breathing. We went for a nighttime stroll to breath the cold air. I couldn't believe my baby was sick, and I had no sousou to give her. If it were not for the ornate sousou fairy ceremony, and for all the effort Jackie and Alice put in, and for the fact that I had absolutely no idea where the sousous were and wasn't going to wake up my stressed out husband to ask him, we might have had a relapse. But we made it through the night, and we made it through the next day. We celebrated when we made it 24 hours with out a pacifyer. She fell asleep in my arms again last night, completely exhausted. Now we are almost through day 2. She still has croup, but has been a real trouper. She has only asked for her sousou a couple of times today, and though she hasn't been able to nap, she is pretty happy. Though, I must confess, that I am offering almost limitless supplies of her other drugs of choice: warm milk in a sippy cup and cozy blankie snuggles. I am also being a little to liberal with the very unhealthy corn pops (which she calls pop corn).

Anyway - that's the sousou story. My baby is one step closer to big kid hood. Next stop, potty training. No - next stop, sharing a room with Jackie. I cringe just thinking about potty training.