operation "ditch the pacifier"

I took Henry to Build-A-Bear Workshop today as I wanted to quit the pacifier - cold turkey.  I've been talking it up since yesterday morning, saying, "tomorrow, since you're such a big boy, we get to go to the mall and you get to make your very own bear.....we're going to bring your pacis and put them IN the bear and then you get to take the bear home and sleep with it!"  Sounds pretty cool right?  Well, one minute he thought it was cool and the next minute, I swear he had tears in his eyes.  

Now fast forward to today.....

This place is too cute!

This is how our conversation went when we got there:

Margot (Build-A-Bear lady):  Hi, are you guys here for a special occasion today?

Mommy:  Yep, we're here to trade in our pacifiers for a brand new bear!

Margot, to Henry:  WOW, you are such a big boy to bring your pacifiers and do this!

Henry:  I go poopy in the toilet, yeah Henny!!!  (clap, clap, clap)

Margot:  Alright, let's celebrate that too!

Step 1 - the fluffy filling.  Henry had to operate the foot pedal to fill his new bear with all that good fluff.

The machine was a little loud and it kinda freaked him out at first to see this bear filling up and coming to life!

Next step, you gotta give your bear a heart, but we both had to kiss it first :)

Now here comes the good part, shove the pacis in and say good-bye!  He had no problem with this, it was fun in fact, and he wanted more things to put in the bear.  I sterilized the 2 pacis that he was going to stuff in before we came (and threw the other 2 in the trash, yes, the trash out in the garage even, and no, I don't have a spare hiding around here).

He was dirty after all that stuffing and needed a "bath".  Here's the foot pedal to operate his bathtub :)

Finally, what to wear?  It was a tough decision between a Vikings football player and Spiderman.  He was all about the football uniform from the get-go, and I have a feeling it was because yesterday was Sunday and so we watched (and played) quite a bit of football.  According to Henry, every team that was playing yesterday was either the Vikings or the Gophers (and unfortunately, neither of them were playing).

We had to make a birth certificate too, and so after some hard thinking, he kept it simple and named him Viking!  

Alas, it was nap time when we got home.  There were a few tears with no paci in his crib, but nothing major at all.  He certainly didn't go to sleep right away, as I heard him reciting "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" for quite a while in there.  Then Viking had to do EVERYTHING with us this afternoon!  He even had to sit up at the island and have his own snack (one apple slice and one piece of raisin bran cereal, please).  Henry was even throwing an apple around the kitchen and blamed it on Viking, saying that he was just playing football :)  

Tonight was a different story, oh the sad tears were streaming down his face.  "I need it Mommy, I need it, open him please."  There really were only a few minutes at the most of sad crying and I never heard another peep!  

Good-night Viking and good-bye pacis!