We are a family of unrepentant mythmakers, so much so that we sometimes walk a fine line. Z's world is one in which Santa and the Easter Bunny visit multiple party and event sites every year to prepare for her arrival, and we are quick to adopt elements of other traditions that we've been exposed to in our own past - we celebrate Christmas holidays on both December 5 and 25, for example, in deference to traditions we grew to love during some time spent in the Netherlands. So it wasn't a far stretch for us to invent a fairy who was waiting to take away Z's pacifiers and reward her with a mysterious gift.

A little backstory. Z is a determined little girl who until about six months ago was a passionate thumbsucker. It never bothered us - we'd chosen thumbsucking over a pacifier, largely because we wanted her talking as much as possible as early as possible, and pacifier use, especially in the daytime, sometimes delays speech a bit.

But we did get a little anxious about her thumb habit once every six months, when her pediatric dentist would warn us about crooked teeth and brace face each time she came in for a cleaning. When she was three, I blew him off. At four, I started to be concerned that it might have a lasting impact, and started thinking about the fact that I actually had no idea how I could encourage her to stop if I wanted to. As a person who did not have to wear braces or a retainer but whose two siblings both survived at least some teenage orthodontia, I really want to spare her this if at all possible, not to mention sparing our whole family the considerable expense.

So we were amazed, thrilled, and deeply proud when Z, after much hemming, hawing, inner struggle and public discussion, announced out of the blue one day that she was going to Stop Sucking Her Thumb. And did, that night. And trained herself, in a matter of a few days, not only to not suck her thumb when going to sleep, or during the day, but even resisted doing it in her sleep when she shifted and stirred.

I have heard and read that weaning from a pacifier or thumb is as difficult for a child as stopping smoking is for an adult (or, presumably, a child). I don't know if it's true, but it certainly makes an impression, doesn't it? And she did this basically all by herself - with some gentle suggestions, guidance, and reasoning by her parents, but suddenly, and really without ever looking back.

Fast forward a month or so. We have pacifiers sitting around everywhere because everyone is coming out with BPA-free ones and sending them to us. Z has been observing the all-silicone, one-piece Nurture Pure pacifier, and asks to try it out for fun.

It isn't long before a night comes where she tells us she is struggling to get to sleep, wants to suck her thumb, and will accept a pacifier instead. We give in, one night became thirty-seven, and what do you know? It's April and she's still sucking on a pacifier to get to sleep. We can pop it out as soon as she is asleep, and then she needs it again at 2 a.m. when she wakes up, uses the bathroom, and then leads us in a desperate hunt for one of the four pacifiers she's claimed, fishing around in the sheets and scouring the floor like a bunch of junkies.

So, what do non-authoritarian parents do when confronted with a breakable habit and a child who appears to be stuck in a rut? First, I tried to follow some advice offered by her dentist, and poke holes in her pacifiers with sewing needles. Of course, this is an utter failure because I wait to do this until a night when she has agreed to try not using the pacifier and we are trying to hold her to it, and I offer the compromise that I could poke a hole in it so it didn't suck as well, rather than her having to go without. Seems logical enough, yeah? This Did Not Go Over Well. Since I am not pushy but also take pains not to treat crying as a valid counter-argument, this results in a lot of back and forth and a very late night.

Enter the Pacifier Fairy.

People who don't want to "lie to" their kids about things like Santa crack me up. Not because I think they're wrong, but because I think children enter this world with a completely incoherent mishmash of fantasy and reality, and that they learn about their world by slowly teasing these apart, with lots of creative blending along the way. I believe children use fantasy to help them understand reality, and they abandon it when and in the ways that it stops being useful to them. The key to being honest with children, in my view, is to knock it off as soon as they do.

The Pacifier Fairy is an interesting example of that. When it comes to introducing fantastical concepts into our lives, we learned from the master. We watch Z talk about her imaginary friends frequently, and listen to the way she justifies and explains them to us, how she matter-of-factly presents details of their lives and speculates about things she hasn't made up yet, then promptly fills in the details to her liking. It's like watching someone sketching, making decisions as they go and never feeling bound to them, but undoing and reworking things as they see fit.

Here is a composite of a few conversations we had over the course of several days. Imagine some gaps in here, and this is how it evolved - I've made sure to preserve authorship of the parts of this myth, because I think it's the most interesting thing about it.

Me: Have you ever heard of the Pacifier Fairy?

Z: The Pacifier Fairy?

Me: Me neither. I never used pacifiers, so she never visited me. But I hear she comes and takes pacifiers away from kids when they're done with them, and leaves a present or something.

Z: Comes in the night?

Me: Yeah, you leave out your pacifiers when you aren't going to use them anymore, and she comes and collects them, and leaves you something.

Z: Like the Tooth Fairy?

Me: Yes, a lot like the Tooth Fairy. But she takes all your pacis at once, when you're done with them.

Z: How does she know that you left the pacis out?

Me: Well, you hang them in your window, and she sees them when she's flying by, and she comes and gets them.

Z: Actually, you hang them in a tree. With string.

Me: Oh, right.

Z: And she brings you presents.

Me: Yeah, that's what I heard anyway. But I never had pacifiers, so I never got presents from her.

Z: (Laughing scornfully) There's no thumb-sucking fairy, is there Daddy?

Me: (Laughing.) Of course not!

Z: Thumb-sucking fairy. (Laughs.)

Me: I wonder what kind of presents she leaves. I heard they're good.

Z: Do you know what she does with the pacifiers? When she takes them?

Me: No, that's a good question. I have no idea. What do you think?

Z: She gives them to the Tooth Fairy. Actually, she gives them to the babies of the Tooth Fairy. The Tooth Fairy has five babies, who fly around too and help collect the teeth from the people who lost their teeth. And she gives them the pacifiers. They fly around at night, like the Tooth Fairy, and if they see a mouse, they shoot it, and if they see a dog, they shoot it.

Me: They shoot dogs? Why do they shoot dogs?

Z: They shoot mice.

Me: Okay.

Z: And she gives the pacifiers to the baby Tooth Fairies.

Me: Okay.

Z: And do you know what her name is? The Pacifier Fairy?

Me: No, what?

Z: Beautiful Fairy. No, Rosie.

Z spent two weeks promising each night that the next night she was going to give up her pacifiers and go to sleep without them. She planned out loud how she would manage this, and made bold declarations during the day about her intentions for that evening, but when bedtime came, she would beg off the change and make a sincere promise for the following night.

But I noticed a bit of a smirk developing as she repeated this promise night after night, and realized that it was bordering on becoming a part of her routine, so I asked her to stop promising me. One night she did as I asked, but the next night she was very insistent on promising, and cried when I told her not to promise me that. I told her I wasn't upset with her, but I wanted to know when she promised me something that she was going to do it, and when she was unable to do it she shouldn't promise, so that I wouldn't stop believing her promises.

That night when we were lying on her bed reading a book, she turned to me and said, "Guess what, Daddy?"

"What?" I asked.

"I'm going to put my pacifiers out for the Pacifier Fairy tonight."

I was surprised, but I knew that look. She was ready, and I'd better be ready for her to be ready, and believe in it.

We weren't ready yet with the presents - we'd looked at a few things on Amazon and Etsy, but hadn't come up with anything - and had even ordered a tiny letter from the World's Smallest Postal Service, which read as follows:

Dear Zella,

I heard you are getting ready to give up your pacifiers. A little mouse heard you talking about it outside and told me when I was flying by, before it had to run away from the Baby Tooth Fairies.

I am glad to hear that you're ready to put your pacis outside for me because the Tooth Fairy had three more babies and they need pacifiers! I have a present waiting for you and it is lonely and keeps asking me when will it get to come to your house.

When you leave your pacis out, please ring a bell so that I know to come check for them that night.

Love,
The Paci Fairy

We had developed a story earlier that week (we often tag-team storytelling in the car) about how the Pacifier Fairy sometimes doesn't take the pacifiers the first night (I know how to build a little wiggle room into my mythologizing), and I'd be damned if I let a tiny letter get in the way of progress. We stopped reading before Z could chicken out, collected her pacifiers, and hung them from a water oak in our backyard with twine.


That night she got to sleep after a few tears and a moment of weakness. But there were no pacifiers in the house, so what could she do? Steal them from the near-clutches Pacifier Fairy?

It nearly broke my heart to have her see that next morning that the fairy hadn't come, but she took it well enough. I went to our local toy store that day and checked out some toy options, and then Jenni went later and made the final call. That evening when I brought Z home from her grandmother's house, I pointed in stunned silence at the tulle packages hanging where her pacifiers had been. The fact of the Pacifier Fairy's cheeky visit in broad daylight has been the subject of much discussion and speculation over the two days since this happened.





(Oh look! Fairy dust!)






The gifts of the Playmobil - I mean Pacifier - Fairy:

• Leaf and stick carriage with unicorn, pineapple-hat fairy, and strawberry-hat fairy


• Goatherd with goat family (please don't buy it for $40 on Amazon; why not buy the girl with baby goats for $3.73 instead?)


• Flower-hat fairy with leaf wheelbarrow, lilies, and pruners


• Wooden fence