Pacify This

When Emma was about 2, we decided it was time to get rid of the pacifier at night.  It started off as a punishment if she misbehaved during the day.  I remember one day I got home from work just in time to put Emma to bed.  Mandy told me that she had lost her pacifier earlier in the day.  Emma climbed up into bed and I asked her,  "Emma, were you good for mommy today?" She shook her head, no.  "Then you need to give me your pacifier."  She dropped her head, rather dejectedly, then she slowly held her hand out and dropped a pacifier in my hand.  She had two at the time, so I said, "And the other one too please."  Keeping her head down, she reached out and dropped the other one in my hand.  I told her she could try again tomorrow and maybe have them tomorrow night.  It was a warm night, so I opened her window and set her pacifiers up on her dresser then I left the room.  Mandy and I stayed up a while later to watch a couple shows.  After a couple hours, we headed off to bed.  I went into Emma's room to close her window and give her a kiss and there she was, fast asleep with a pacifier in her mouth!  I glanced over at the dresser to see that both pacifiers were gone.  She had snuck out of bed and climbed up on a box to grab her pacifiers off the dresser.  I figured it wouldn't teach her anything if I took the pacifiers now and she does sleep better when she has one, so I decided to talk to her about it in the morning. 

Side story: Until Emma was almost four, when she woke up in the morning she wouldn't get out of bed.  She would sit there and call out to us until we came in to get her.  Then she would hop out of bed.  Just another one of her quirky little things. 

The next morning I woke up to shouts of, "Daddy.  Mommy.  I'm awake!"  I went into Emma's bedroom and there on her dresser, in the exact position I had set them the night before, were both of Emma's pacifiers.  And there was Emma, sitting innocently in bed.  The little stinker had woken up, climbed out of bed, put her pacifiers back (somehow in the exact same spot), then climbed back into bed, before calling out to say that she was awake.  As I quickly put it all together, I stood there and just laughed.  I figured I ought to be upset about it, but it was all just too clever and funny, I couldn't be mad.  I then began to wonder how many times she had done it before, but it hadn't been warm enough to open the window, so I hadn't noticed.  The next time she lost her pacifiers we set up a camcorder to see if we could catch her doing it again.  Because of the dark, it was hard to see much, but sure enough, we could see her sneak out of bed and grab her pacifiers.  Then she decided she was thirsty, so she snuck out again, put the pacifiers back, then climbed back into bed before calling out, "Mommy.  Daddy.  I'm Thirsty!"  That night and from then on, the pacifiers found a new home, hooked to a couple nails above the door frame.