Bye-Bye, Baba

This morning, Blythe and I watched the slide show I made for her first birthday.

I pointed out how big she is becoming, how tall and smart.  We talked about how big girls drink milk from a cup, and babies drink milk from a bottle.

I pointed to the Blythe on the screen, baby Blythe.  I pointed to the Blythe on my lap, Big Girl Blythe.  We talked about how there are babies out there who could really use her bottles.

So, I made her one last bottle.  She asked that it be a BIG ONE.



And then we emptied the contents of her bottle cabinet into a box, and sealed it up with miles of packing tape.  I think all kids love tape. 



Blythe decided to send her bottles to Baby A.  She knows he could use them.

She carried the package out to the front porch all by herself, and set it on the bench for the mail lady to pick up.

She said good-bye to the box, good-bye to her baba’s.

And then, as we read books and got ready for nap, she began to cry.  She missed her baba’s.  She loved her baba’s.  She didn’t want them back – in her mind, they already belonged to Baby A. 

But she was grieving.  She was so very, very sad.  She doesn’t want to be a big girl anymore, she said.

I lay there in the dark with her, rubbing her back and feeling the tears fall down my cheeks and I mourned with her.  For a kid with Sensory Processing Disorder, there aren’t a lot of sure-fire options when it comes to soothing. 

Baba’s were her thing.  If she got overwhelmed and her senses felt like they were going out of control, a baba would calm her right down.  It’s hard for both of us to let them go.

But it’s time.  Recently she was very, very sick for two full weeks.  During that time, she developed a bad habit of “needing” a bottle to get her back to sleep every time she woke up in the night.

Now that she’s better, she continues to wake up every 2-3 hours, asking for one.  There are at least a dozen reasons I want to nip that habit right in the bud.  And the only way I can think of to do that, is to make bottles completely unavailable.

I know she’ll be alright.  She’ll find another way to soothe herself, and I’ll help her every step of the way.  This is a good thing.  It is.

But walking away from that package, from the last thing that kept her in “baby” status?  It was hard.  She’ll always be my baby. 

But it’s time for me to let her be a big girl.  My big girl.