The Soothie Addiction

My girls both love their soothies I don't know how we will ever get them to give them up for good. As nick likes to joke it's a good thing we have dental insurance. At one point at the suggestion of their dentist I tried to switch them to the orthodontic kind but as you can see the transition was not successfully. Ella has about twelve soothies in her bed, we have managed to keep Molly down to a more manageable four (2 green and 2 yellow). Ella has green, yellow and one very special blue soothie which are no longer in production. At one point we had lost the last blue, it fell in a lake and down in between some large rocks. That was a sad day for Ella but she eventually moved on. Not long after she had accepted her fate with no blue Ella's friend Cait found a blue soothie underneath a bed and as Ella puts it "saved her life". We have managed to keep track of that one blue soothie for 2 years. It doesn't sound that amazing but it is considering how many of these things we have lost. At on point I bought them in bulk 25 to a package. I don't think I want to know how much we have spent on soothies in the past 4 years. Well this post has probably been boring to anyone who actually read it but as Ella's fourth birthday approaches this weekend I find myself sort of glad she still enjoys the soothies. As independant as she sometimes is, in a few ways she is still my baby. And as much as I cursed these stupid soothies as I crawled around on the floor 8 months pregnant searching under furniture for them they are a part of who she is. She likes to put one in her mouth and one under her nose, she always says I need a soothi to sniff with. Molly likes to put one her mouth and one or two in her ears. This past Saturday morning Ella climbed in bed with Nick and I and said I didn't know that soothie's had a dot com. Nick said where did she get that from and I said there is a web address on the soothie. Nick asked her if she read that off the soothie and she replied yes. Clearly a sign that she is too old for these silly plugs. I am torn though, I know that someday she will give them up on her own time but should I be making more of an effort to help her give them up? I am sure we will find the answer someday