The Gemini Diaries

We're just about at the end of the fall leaf season here in Atlanta. As noted before, it's a great time of year - my favorite. I haven't been in years but when I was in college I would often travel up from Clemson to the Western North Carolina mountains to see the mountains all afire and hike a mountain or two or just drive around. As everyone knows though, timing is everything. Go too early or wait too long and you miss the show. It just seems to go so quickly every year.

Mary Poole and Perritt are a lot like that these days. Vestiges of their years and months as infants are seemingly disappearing daily. There hasn't been anything quite as noticeable as the passing of the paci though, with the exception of potty training, which is underway.

In any case, back to the paci. So over the months and years LeeAnn and I have been really delinquent in instituting a forceful separation of Perritt from his best friend. We just knew it was going to be ugly and we just couldn't bear to do it to the boy. He's just so sweet and nice. We didn't think his heart could take it. Going to the pediatrician for checkups had been uncomfortable because we knew the question would come up. "Anyone using a paci or bottle still?" Awkward silence. "Just one. A paci." And then we'd sort of glance sideways-like and point to Sir. Meanwhile he'd just be sitting there looking at us like "What?"

But you know, we could handle the pediatrician. We knew that if the doctor just knew how sweet Perritt was he would agree there was no harm in his paci friendship. Plus, he only used it for naps and bedtime. Plus we didn't really have any appetite for spending two nights not sleeping because of the crying when you forced a paci intervention.Layer in the fact that we could still sort of pass the twins off as our "babies" because of his paci and there just wasn't a lot of impetus to make this move.

But the day came and we had to pull the trigger. We just had to try. So we did. The first night we asked him, "Hey Perritt, do you think we can just leave your paci here tonight" and we set the paci on top of his crib. He thought about it, looked at the paci, looked at us, clearly wise to our plan and took it down and put it in the crib and said "Just right dare." We put it back on top and said, "How about here. You can still have it, but it'll be right here". He looked at us again and went through some mental negotiations and decided that this agreement was ok, but that he wanted 2 pacis, probably in case one of them fell off. So we complied. Two pacis up on top (not one will drop).

Going in later that night, we found one paci was in his mouth and the other one on the floor. Prescient little tike. But we had failed we thought. But when we went in the next morning, it was back up on the top of the crib. Bubby had remembered the request and put it right back. So we knew he was trying.

So that night we tried again. The same thing - two pacis up on top - only when we went in later that night, he didn't have it in his mouth, one paci was up, one in the crib - but no paci in the mouth. Progress.

The third night, we dropped it to one paci and that one made it into the crib but not in his mouth.

The fourth night, it was one paci and it never left the top of the crib. It was funny though because in the middle of the typical Mary Poole/Perritt banter on their way to sleep we heard a lot of this on the monitor: "Paci going just right dare." As if he were talking himself off the no-paci ledge. When we went in the next morning he was so proud. "Paci just right dare. I no no need it."

But that paci stayed there all night. The next day we tried it again. Same thing. The paci never moved. The next day, we just took it away altogether and that was that. He didn't even mention it. Keep in mind this is the one thing he's had as part of his sleep routine since his birth. He literally had never slept without it. Not once. Not ever. And then one night, he just didn't.

No crying. No knashing of teeth. Just a little boy bidding his buddy a protracted goodbye. This was a couple of weeks ago now and I don't even know where those pacis are in the house. They're just, gone. Like so many other things I suppose. I guess I just thought there would be more pomp and circumstance about leaving something so integral behind. But like the leaves every fall, even big events can pass quickly and quietly, one leaf at a time.