Phasing Out Pappy

My wife has decided it's time to get rid of our security blanket at home. This of course means it's time to break our nearly two-year-old baby girl of the "Pappy" habit.

It's not going to be easy, especially when Jeannie's not around. As Dad, I can tell you there's no better babysitter sometimes than the good old mangled pacifier. I'm about a week behind on the "get rid of Pappy" campaign, but I was forced to adhere to the new rules around the house over the last weekend.

Up until now it's not been unusual for Abby to have Pappy in her possession or in her mouth, I would estimate, probably 23 hours out of a 24-hour day. And that's rounded off. Pappy is her best friend, and she has several friends -- her favorite thing is to have one Pappy in her mouth and several others in both hands, just to know that there's always a friend close by.

We've found Pappys everywhere in the house. Toy box, TV cabinet, fireplace, under the bed, in clothes drawers. Because of a lack of counter space, we keep our toaster oven when not in use in a cabinet near the refrigerator. Abby's thing has always been to open cabinet doors, and once she found the toaster it became the thing to play with the door on the toaster. Yes, we find Pappys in the toaster oven now.

We're phasing out Pappy in an effort to help Abby speak. And for the most part, I'd say it's been a rousing success. She talks non-stop now, and a few words are actually understandable. Her favorite phrases the last week or so post-Pappy have been things like "Sanka Coz," "Oh min" (that's oh man -- she's picked this up somehow and says it all the time, out of the blue, quite hilarious) and her personal favorite, "Oss." Oss, of course, means "Oz," as in The Wizard of Oz, which is now forever on our DVR because yours truly thought it would be great for the kids to have. Abby loves it, and we watch the Dorothy Chronicles at least twice a day, or parts of it, anyway.

Oh yeah, she can say "Care cro" too, courtesy of Oz.

So the chatter has picked up considerably with Pappy out the way. We've come to an agreement with the baby, however. She can have Pappy only at naptime and bedtime, and any other time she gets a hankerin for her friend it's with the understanding that a nap must take place as well. That usually settles the issue for a few moments, anyway.

A week or so into the experiment, Abby's now playing games. It was just me and her yesterday in the living room, and I of course was caught up in the early part of the Cowboys game. That's about all I say about that debacle -- the Cowboys, I mean.

I look up at some point and there's Abby, somehow with a shiny green pappy in her mouth and another multi-colored one in her hand. I said something to the effect of get rid of the Pappy, and she grinned from behind the friend. I reached out to get it and she pulled back, grinning larger. Then we got into this playful little chase around the furniture, which fortunately I won. Both Pappys were removed and placed out of sight, I thought, and therefore out of mind.

No chance. Two minutes later, I look up and she's retrieved them, and we're off to chasing again. This went on for two or three more times before I finally had enough and the Pappys were safetly put out of reach. Game effectively over, she moved on to the next project with not a single word of protest.

Yes, Pappy isn't dead around the house, but the funeral arrangements are in the works. Once Abby realizes she can indeed fall asleep and sleep peacefully without Pappy in the same room, we can all breathe a little easier. Maybe then we'll get rid of the nighttime bottle-before-bed routine, too.