Expect the Unexpected.

What happened yesterday came out of left field!  This youngest girl of ours continues to surprise us and in this case it was in a good way.

She gave up her bink....all.by.herself!  I am still totally shocked and if I am being honest I am sad too!

She has only had her bink at nap time and bedtime since she turned one. The girl is very attached to that thing.  She would go grab it out of her bed and take a few sucks on it and put it back, she would hide it under her blankie when she wanted it and wasn't supposed to have it. She almost  always got caught when she wasn't supposed to have it. Her bink is what we have been using to keep her in her crib until we move so since she doesn't have it, I am a little scared  as to what is going to happen now.

I had intended for it to be gone last summer after we got back from our vacation and before school started. I knew it was going to be painful and there would be a ton of crying involved so it needed to happen when Ashton didn't have to go to school. Well, right when I was going to have the Bink Fairy come visit, she decided it was time for us to head down the potty training road and I couldn't very well do both at the same time so that meant I had to hold off on taking away her bink.

Then I thought it needed to happen over Thanksgiving or Christmas. Well then I felt like since everything in her world was up in the air with the house and moving, I felt like she needed to keep something as her comfort so we let her have it. I decided Spring  Break was the new  time and this time it was going to happen no matter what--Daddy on the other hand wanted to let her keep it until she was 21 or as long as she  wanted.  We were totally anticipating the worst possible outcome. 

Well  last night she decided all by herself she was ready for the Bink Fairy to visit her. So here's the story of how Landry said Bye-Bye to her Binks.

Here is the convo we had in the car on our way to taking Ashton to dance yesterday that started the whole thing:

Landry:  "Mommy, when do I get to have my own dance class?"

Mommy:  "Well,  honey they don't let little girls who still have binks  go to dance class. So the Bink Fairy will need to come visit you first." {I have used this with just about everything hoping that something would would help ex: skittles, painted nails, etc.}

Ashton: "So P, when do you want he Bink Fairy to come?"

Landry: "hmmmm, maybe I fink  in December."

And that was that. We got to dance she played like she was in dance class in the lobby and we headed home so I could give her to Daddy and I could get ready to go to bunco.

As we were driving  home she told me she wanted the Bink Fairy to come visit her.  I didn't really think anything of it. We got home and she told  Daddy she wanted the Bink Fairy to come visit her.  He looked at me like "yeah right" and brushed it off.

So Daddy picked Ashton up from dance and took the girls to grab some dinner on the way home. They went through the drive thru at McDonalds. The only time the girls usually eat at Mickey D's is when they visit grandparents...it is kind of their thing with Grammy and Grampy and we stop there for breakfast on our way to Mamo and Papo's house so that was the first unusual thing of the night.

After dinner, Daddy gave the girls a bath. Landry got all of her binks out of the baskets and headed straight to the kitchen table with them. She  told Daddy to take her picture because she wanted the Bink Fairy to come tonight.

After Daddy got over his shock, he did  as she requested and thought there was absolutely no way this  was for real.

But it was. She TOTALLY went to bed with NO BINK and NO CRYING....NOT A PEEP!

Bobby texted me and told me he hoped I was "ready" for the Bink Fairy to come. I was floored. He texted me back a little while later and said she was totally asleep and didn't cry or whine or anything....just went to sleep like she had never had a bink before!!!

So just like that, the Bink Fairy came and visited our littlest  girl.

I had to take a picture of her binks (the binks we have had since she was a bitty baby) just as she laid them out.  These are the same binks we bought in the beginning and never had to buy anymore because the girl just didn't lose them!

{I am so bothered by the quality of these historic pictures....I was afraid to change the settings on my camera because I didn't want to miss any part of this big day}

The Bink Fairy brought her some special "Big Girl" things that only little girls with no binks can have like lip gloss, nail polish, skittles, a big girl cup, and paints.

We had a SUPER DUPER excited three year old and Big Sister when they woke up this morning.

Ashton read the note from the Bink Fairy to Landry...

LP was so proud and excited and giddy!

Look at that PROUD and HAPPY face on that girl!

She had to immediately put on the light up Cinderella shoes...

...and show off her note from the Bink Fairy.

I mean even though I was sad and fighting back the lump in my throat and the tears, I was so proud of her for deciding to do it all on her own. She was ready for this milestone!

She really wanted to wear her new dress up shoes to school but I had to convince her that wasn't a good idea. She happily settled on posing for the camera instead and she put those shoes back on the second we walked in the door!

We painted her finger nails this afternoon with her new pink nail polish and she requested sparkles on top so that is what she got.  She was beyond thrilled with the whole day.

She woke up one  time last night asking for her bink, but when I told her she left it for the Bink Fairy to give to the new babies, she went back to sleep. 

I am still in awe that she just decided all by herself that she was ready for the Bink Fairy to come visit her. I am surprised at how easy it was...I was totally dreading it because I just knew it would be miserable. She is growing up way too fast and I can't seem to keep up! As much as I am glad the bink is  gone for all the right reasons, I am sad that it is gone for all the sentimental reasons. I miss seeing her all snuggled up with her blankie and her bink. I miss hearing her sucking on it over the monitor, I miss seeing how much she LOVED that bink.

I am so proud of her and I am so glad it was easy, but I am not going to lie that it makes me sad every time I think that my youngest and last little girl no longer has her bink. I am thankful this wasn't stressful and hard on any of us. 

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Here is our Big Girl when the Bink Fairy came to visit our house for the first time back in March of 2005 at the age of 2.5.  With Ashton, we had decided that she was not going to have her bink when she turned three even though it lived in her bed. 

We thought that since she was in a big girl bed and I was going to have Potty Training Boot Camp in the summer the bink needed to go.  So since I was teaching at the time, we used my Spring Break to get it done. With Ashton she left out one bink on the first night, the Bink Fairy left her a magic wand and a crown. The second night she left another bink for the Bink Fairy and Ashton got dress up shoes. The third and final night she left out her last bink and the Bink Fairy brought her a pretty pink princess dress up dress. She was happy with the goodies, but wasn't too happy about not having any more binks. She cried at bedtime for the first night and asked for it for about a week. But all in all we all survived and did pretty well considering it was a first for all of us!  We were so proud of her for enduring it like a champ! It was definitely much harder taking it away rather than her giving it up on her own.

Ashton the morning after the the Bink Fairy came to get the last bink.

No more Bink Fairy Visits in the Bryce House!