Free at last!!

As of last Friday, Joshua is pacifier free! Woohoo! Starting a week ago Friday we started telling him that in 7 days he was going to be a big boy and throw his pacifiers in the garbage because he didn't need them anymore. We played it up and everyday we did the count down. Joshua started telling me, "Yeah, I know," every time I would tell him he was throwing away his pacifiers. We didn't think he really understood because he is quite attached to his pacifiers. He even threw us a curveball by getting a cold. We held strong though.
Come Friday night, we go upstairs and collect all the pacifiers and come back downstairs to the trash. He threw them away, without any fits or anything. He also went right to sleep without any fuss. We were patting ourselves on the back for how well everything went and thinking we were pretty awesome parents. That is until on Saturday morning, Ryan went to get Joshua out of his bed and there he is sucking away on a pacifier. Joshua is already pulling fast ones on us. We pulled everything out of the bed, looking for strays so I don't quite know where Joshua had that one hidden. He's a smart one.
Saturday's nap was pretty disastrous, although he did eventually take one. Saturday evening was probably only about 20 minutes of crying before he went to sleep. He's slowly getting better. He has made me pull out the crib so he can look for pacifiers behind it. He does also check the dresser from time to time where they used to be kept.
We've given him two stuffed animals to hug if he gets sad and my Mom sewed him a Thomas sheet to sleep with.

It hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. We did wait this long to do it, because I knew I had to be completely ready to not give in. My resolve is as strong as ever. The only time I see myself wanting to give in is crying fits in public. I will just have to learn better tantrum handling techniques.