Pacifier Rehab

We recently had to send Rebecca to rehab...for her pacifier.  We admit, we've waited far too long to do this, but I think we were afraid of the repercussions.  And possible retaliation!!!  I read tons of articles about ways other people have done it; cold turkey, long drawn out weaning, having a fairy come and take it away so little babies 'round the world could have it, etc., etc., etc.  Then we came up with a plan that combined a bit of each of those.

We decided to give her some warning and then on a given day, she could only have it at nap and bedtime for 1 week.  At the end of that week, it would be given to babies who need it.  We would also go somewhere fun to celebrate.  She chose Tom's Farms (pics to follow). The given day came and we thought FOR SURE she'd be up at night crying about it.  Well, it has pretty much been a non-event.  She asked for it a couple of times, but didn't get upset when we told her they were gone.

So now, our almost 3 year old is FINALLY pacifier free!!

Here are pics of our celebration day at Tom's Farms:

As we figured she would, she wanted to go on the carousel first.  And she loved it.  She told me "mommy, this is my FAVORITE ride".  Wait til we take her to Disneyland this Fall!!!

 

Train Ride!

Tom's Farms was originally a farmer's market but it has tons of other stuff now.  Here we are inside the farmer's market.  She was very intrigued by the bin of grapefruit for some reason.

With Daddy in the petting zoo.  She didn't seem scared, but as soon as the little goat touched her hand, she didn't want to feed them anymore.

 

First pony ride!!  She didn't want to go at first, but then she saw a couple of other little girls riding the ponies and that seemed to give her some confidence.  She didn't look overly thrilled or anything, but she seemed to be o.k. with it.

As we were leaving, we noticed a guy making balloon animals and thought it would be fun.  Well, these were not your ordinary balloon animals!  These were amazing works of art...look at this Wonder Woman Rebecca picked.  It was so cool!

 

 As I've mentioned numerous times before, Rebecca is a very busy girl.  She is on the move all the time!  The episode below is when she got in to some rolls of streamers we used at St. Patrick's Day to make rainbows.  She had a very good time unrolling the rolls pretty much the length of the house.

Here she is on the run because she knows I'm after her!

Basically her mug shot...holding the evidence!

My niece was in town, and the girls got to spend a couple of hours together.  Rebecca had a BLAST!!

 

I will also mention that it was my mom's b-day when my niece was here.  So we gave Grandma her presents when she was here.  I bought my mom a twirling baton.  Some of you may know this, but my mom twirled a baton when she was younger.  She marched in parades with the Montebello Police Band (how my parents met actually).  Since my dad has picked up his trombone again, I thought it would be fun for my mom to dust off her twirling moves.  And as you can see from this video...she's still got it!!

Here are a bunch of miscellaneous things:

 

I took her to Barnes & Noble the other day to buy a gift for a bday party she's going to this weekend.  She had so much fun.  I don't think she's been to a bookstore before.  I buy most stuff online and we go to the library but not a bookstore.  Anyway, she was running around and saw some stuff in the toy section.  She found an umbrella and then did an impromptu performance right there.  She does love to make up songs and do little dances.  Enjoy!

 

 

This as a pretty big milestone the other day.  I was just thinking about it recently - when will she start drawing those typical kid pictures of the weird looking people with no arms and legs?  Well, here you go.  In case you need an interpretation, this is our family.  Mike is the big one on the left, I am the smaller one on the bottom on the right and Rebecca is on my head.

We went to a pizza place with some video games and she was dying to play.  We pulled up a chair and daddy helped her play a game of Pac-Man!

Acting like a monkey!

We had to come up with something new to reward good behavior since we've been struggling with it so much.  I created this game board on a piece of poster board.  When she does good, she advances in the game by putting a sticker on the rectangles (thank you paint chips!).  Every 5th space or so is some sort of reward...choosing from the prize box, getting to go to her favorite restaurant (El Pollo Loco), buying a new craft supply at Michael's, etc.  Then we will go mini golfing at the end.  The funniest part about all of this is the swamp you see in the middle.  We had to have some way of "punishing" for bad behavior, so there's a swamp.  If she's acting up and won't correct it when asked, I move the little cut out of her into the swamp then she has to earn her way out before she can start advancing again.  The first time we told her about the swamp she absolutely lost it...crying and carrying on.  But so far, it has been a pretty good deterrent!