Goodbye, Xuxa's

If you're going "Xuxa? What the heck is a xuxa?", clearly you haven't spent much time with my family, it's pronounced shoe-sha and is the Portuguese word for pacifier.

Last week my big sis, Angela, called and tried to convince me to start potty-training Asher today - the same day she is starting with her son who's the same age as Asher. I was a little tempted, but I feel like Asher and I have a few preliminary steps to take before we take on potty-training. Step One: Ditch the pacifier. So I told Angela that I would take on the xuxa's on the same day she started potty-training - today.

Asher is sooo addicted to his beloved "xuxa". His whole day revolves around when he can get his next "fix". It's been reduced to a "only use in bed" item ever since he started talking, but he always finds ways to get at it more often. He often happily goes to his room at random times just to happily lay on his bed alone and suck away on the nasty thing. He asks about it throughout the day. When I decided to take it away I told him about it in advance. He cried just at the thought of not having it in the future.

Oh, and Isaiah is getting rid of his today, too. But I knew that wouldn't be as big a deal to him.

**Warning: I'm aware that the below is probably really more than you want to know. Skip it or skim it. Whatever. This part is really more for the "family journal" aspect of this blog.**

So this morning first thing, the boy's took their xuxa's downstairs with them and put them in the garbage cans. Then we took the garbage bag outside. Then a few minutes later we heard a truck outside and we told Asher that was the garbage truck taking away his xuxa (the garbage doesn't actually get taken away until tomorrow). No biggie for the moment since they wouldn't normally see their xuxa's again until naptime anyway.

Morning naptime for Isaiah usually only lasts about an hour and he doesn't always actually sleep. He's getting a little old for a morning nap. This morning he cried a little and was clearly confused when I put him to bed without his xuxa. But it was no biggie. He played in his crib for a while and then let me know he was ready to get out. Fine. He'll just be more tired later.

I took the boys to the mall today to wear them out really good and to buy them a special toy because "they're such big boys!" Asher picked out "Ramone" from Cars and Isaiah picked a tractor.

When it came time for naptime, Asher kind of lost it before we even got to that point. I think my wearing-them-out plan worked a little too well. But eventually everybody was in their beds. Isaiah went straight to sleep without a peep. Asher screamed bloody-murder for about an hour and 15 minutes. At that point I went up, read him a book, tucked him in to bed and handed him another book to look at. After that he played semi-contentedly for another 45 minutes until I let him come out. No sleep. And now he's so volatile it's not even funny. That boy needs a nap! What a grump! But hey, maybe it'll work like it did for Isaiah and he'll just be super tired tonight. Right?

...Yeah. I don't really think so either...

Edited to Add:
Actually, it really did work that way. Asher fell almost straight to sleep this evening (with Ramone clutched to his chest) despite the fact that Isaiah was screaming his head off. Isaiah took a turn being the one who screamed for more than an hour. I finally went up and gave him some blocks to play with in his crib and he calmed down long enough to fall asleep. I am a little concerned about the precedent I'm setting here with allowing toys into bed. Hopefully we can banish the toys again in a week or so. For now...it made the noise stop. Hallelujah!