A Big Girl

The Pacifier Fairy is not real. Very much like her half-sister the Tooth Fairy and her step-brother the Lost Toy Elf, the Pacifier Fairy is a made-up creature designed to help lazy parents manipulate their children. Case in point, she visited our home recently to help us wean our two-year-old daughter from her most prized possession. Experts differ on the merits of the pacifier, but most would agree that the sooner a child can function without one, the better. After all, when a toddler must remove the pacifier before she tells you what she wants for breakfast, then pops it back in, it’s probably time to consider its removal.

Like her half-sister, the Pacifier Fairy takes something from the child in exchange for cash. Unlike the Tooth Fairy, however, the Pacifier Fairy must be invited. We learned this rule and others from our daughter’s favorite PBS program, Super Why. For those of you without small children, Super Why is the younger brother of Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk fame. Super Why, along with his companions—Little Red Riding Hood, the princess from the pea story, and the son of the surviving little pig—solve problems by jumping into classic children’s books and adjusting the text. Just like in real life.

This program, along with the DVR, has played a crucial role in keeping our daughter stationary while we comb her hair, load the car, or search the house for a needed item, like her baby brother. And, because the program has also aided in her language development, we don’t even feel all that guilty about it.

On the program, the Pacifier Fairy exchanged a character’s pacifier for something better; something more grownup. Seizing the opportunity, we suggested to our daughter that it was entirely plausible that the Pacifier Fairy might be making a stop in our neighborhood in the near future and would most likely be more than willing to drop by for a look at the merchandise. She mulled this over for a few weeks, aided by the occasional hint. We assumed the time might be ripe, as she’d gotten in the habit of declaring quite loudly and with no apparent instigation that “I’m a big girl. I don’t need pacy!” before tossing it across the room, occasionally into her brother’s face.

Over the weeks the pacifier became a sleeping aid for naps and bedtimes, and eventually a tool to be used solely at night. Despite our hinting, though, it remained a crucial component of her bedtime ritual. But then one evening, after a day of water-color painting with grandma, she told us she wanted some paints. Now. At 8:30 at night.

Instinctually I began to dismiss her suggestion, but then my wife, whose brain functions much better than mine does after dark, seized on what she knew to be a golden opportunity.

“Well, sweety, paints cost money, but I wonder if the Pacifier Fairy could give you some money to buy paints if you gave her your pacifier.

“Yeah,” I joined. “And then maybe tomorrow we can go to Wal-Mart and buy some paints!”

But she’d heard little of my comment.

“Paints!” She shouted, tossing her formerly-prized possession across the kitchen. “I don’t need a pacy! I a big girl!”

And thus a bizarre, borderline-occult little ceremony began. We placed her three remaining pacifiers into a used cottage-cheese container, and then placed the bait onto our well-lit front porch. While my wife distracted her in the next room, I snatched the offering and popped some money into the plastic container, rang the doorbell and ran to her bedroom.

“I think the Pacifier Fairy might have been here!”

We three sprinted to the front door and threw it open, half-expecting to see a shriveled old gypsy women curse us for our deceitful parenting. Fortunately we were greeted with merely the used cottage cheese container. And the cash.

“Money!” She cried. “Now I get some paints!”

“Yeah, I know. Tomorrow we can go get some paints!” I replied, hoping against hope that perhaps, just maybe, she’d see the wisdom in postponing the paint purchase until daylight.

“Nooo! I need paints not tomorrow! I need paints tonight!”

Anticipating a meltdown, my wife quickly swooped in. “Well honey, since you’ve given the Pacifier Fairy your pacy, I bet daddy will take you to Wal-Mart to get some paints. Right now.”

I exchanged a few stern looks with my wife and understood immediately that I would soon be in Wal-Mart, buying paints. Right now.

You know those “bad” parents you see in grocery stores and Wal-Marts at night with children way too young to be up that late? I think maybe, at least some of them, are actually scamming their own children at that very moment. Which doesn’t make it better, of course, but does make it a little more understandable.

So off we went down the road, singing a made-up song about all the beautiful pictures we were about to create. We hustled through Wal-Mart, ignoring the glares from all the folks who knew better than to have a toddler up so late at night. We found a set of gorgeous paints and stylish brushes and flew them to our home as quickly as we could, eager to put them into use.

And as I pulled into the garage, I glanced back at our darling, who sat sweetly in her car seat. Wide, wide awake.

“Paints, daddy! I got paints! I don’t need a pacy! I a big girl!”

We painted, then, into the night, delighting in her enthusiasm, cautiously optimistic that we could all survive her first evening without the crutch. Soon it came time to postpone art for the next day. We prepped her for bed with a bath, with a few books, with her evening prayer requests for all the horsies and ponies and unicorns in the world. And the paints, of course. We had to thank God for the paints.

She grabbed a blankie and tried to settle into her pillow. But something, clearly, was amiss.

“I need my pacy.”

The moment we feared had arrived. Time to pay the piper.

“Well, sweety, we don’t have your pacy anymore. Remember? We gave your pacy away, to the Pacifier Fairy. But now you have paints! Tomorrow we can paint!”

But this was not what she’d wanted to hear. Her immediate whimpering was not what we’d wanted to hear, though neither of us was so naïve as to believe it would be so easy.

Children, it turns out, do not grow up all at once. Like the ebb and flow of ocean tides, time is a constant, and is constantly washing away and shifting around the sands we call our lives. Usually it happens without our noticing, without our input, and we simply wake up one morning to find that “My goodness, and how did the tide get so close?”

But occasionally one does watch a sandcastle tumble. And it is as heartbreaking as one might expect.

She cried herself to sleep that night, without her pacifier; a haunting, gut-wrenching sob full of as much pathos as a two-year-old can muster. She’d made her choice, and as her parents we had to respect that choice, as difficult as it was to do so. She was a big girl now, after all. She’d thrown away a childish crutch. She’d willingly thrown away yet another token of her infancy.

I gathered the pacifiers and placed them into a drawer to one day join up with other mementos—her hospital bracelet, a tiny pair of shoes, a funny pink cap that no longer fit—that I dared not study in a crowded room. Like most parents, I wondered if we’d done the right thing.

Like most parents, I admired the art she’d created with her own joyful hands. I smiled.

The Pacifier Fairy, after all, is not real. And tomorrow we would paint.