I am officially calling it over at this point. A couple weeks ago we arrived home to see a box waiting for us by the front door...a box from Amazon! Which could only mean the bobo reward had arrived. While Wy played with the kids next door, I took the box inside, took his new toys out and displayed them on top of the television.
Prior to ordering these particular toys, I had pulled Wyatt into my lap in front of the computer and asked his opinion of them. I also asked if he thought they were cool enough to give up a bobo for. The answer was yes.
So when he came inside for dinner and I told him to look by the TV he was pretty excited. Like any kid he loves to get new toys, but he also knew these were his "special toy" for giving up his bobo's. We sat on the rug in front of the TV and I asked him if he remembered why he was getting a special toy; "bobo's to babies!" I asked him if he was ready to give the bobo's to the babies who need them; "yeah, babies sad." I asked him if he wanted to help me collect them from around the house; "yeah!"
We got a plastic baggie from the kitchen and went room to room looking for bobo's to give to the "sad babies", Wyatt spotted a couple that I missed even and happily tossed them into the bag with the others. Once we had exhausted his bobo hiding places I took him back to the living room and sat on the rug again. I handed him the baggie of bobo's and asked him if he was ready to give mommy those bobo's so he could have his "special toy"; "YES!" I then reminded him that if he did give me the bag, the bobo's would be gone forever, but he would be helping make some babies very happy; still "YES!"
That night we made some masterful pieces of artwork with his new dino stamp set and talked about how his new doll (yes I gave my kid a doll, that's a story for another day) is named Johnny just like his friend John Mark at church.
The last 2 weeks have been rough though.
After posting a picture of Wyatt with his loot on Facebook, my babysitter commented the next morning that she was surprised I hadn't waited until the weekend to do this. My response was that no one was sleeping at my house anyway so why wait? She had already managed to mostly separate him from his bobo for afternoon naps and I knew the worst of it would happen overnight when he was with me, so I didn't see any point in delaying.
There was a lot of crying the first few days especially. And there was the time he found a bobo under my bed. And the time he decided to try out thumb sucking to see if that would be a good substitute. And the constant begging. But through it all, he seemed to really cling to the idea that he had helped make some sad babies happy by giving them his bobo's.
*ASIDE* No babies have actually received his bobo's...I know I'm terrible. I hid the baggie in the garage because I was really scared to let them go in case things got horribly bad without them. Clearly I am just as attached to them as he is. I do plan to throw them in the dish washer for a quick disinfecting and then seeing where I might be able to drop the one's that are still in good condition. I have no doubt that there is a mom out there some place that can't afford to spend the $5 to get her kid a pacifier who would be grateful for some gently used, but greatly loved ones. *END ASIDE*
Wyatt still talks about all the babies he helped by giving up his bobo. His little face lights up like sunshine when he tells you about how there were some very sad babies out there cause they had no bobo's and that he made them happy by giving them his. My heart leaps to see how much my kid loves helping others, how he delights in using what we have been blessed with to help someone who is struggling.
There are no more desperate pleas for bobo; if Wyatt does slip and ask for it I simply tell him no and ask him what we did with those bobo's. He (almost) always begins to grin when he thinks about his valiant deed. There are other times when he just pouts and snarls about helping those babies, but those are few and far between. I'm so proud of my little boy for learning how to self soothe and feel secure without a pacifier. He takes a friend (read stuffed animal/blanket) to bed with him every night, but part of the fun is standing in front of the closet and picking one out every night. And he ends up in my bed pretty much every night still, but we will work on that one later. At the moment I still enjoy waking up to his sweet little face in the morning.
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| Wyatt's "special toys" |
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| I managed to get him to sit for just long enough to take a picture of him with his reward |
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