Pahs and Pah Monsters
\
As you know, we have a bit of a “pah” obsession going on in our house. Pahs would be Baby Bug’s affectionate name for a pacifier. We don’t call them binkys or pacies or anything like that. We call them “pahs.”
I think it started back when she was first learning to talk. She probably meant to say pacifier but shortened it to the first syllable like she did to most words back then. Probably because she was teaching me her language as much as I was teaching her mine, we adopted her word for her beloved pacifier and so it has been ever since.
Um. Well… sort of.
A while back, at Baby Bug’s two-year check up, we had a heart to heart about her pah with her doctor. The doctor said she didn’t really need it anymore. There wasn’t a problem with her having it but she was a big girl now and just didn’t need it. Baby Bug listened solemnly and gave up her pah that very day. Of course she still needed it during nap time and bedtime but no more carrying around three or four and one in her mouth every hour of the day. I though that was great and bragged about her achievement to everyone who would listen.
Then Toby left for two weeks and between missing her Daddy and her molars coming in and me just wanting the whining to stop…she fell off the pah wagon hard. Half a year later, the pahs are as much of a our daily life as they have ever been. I wave my white flag in defeat. We are embracing the pah in our household. She’ll give it up when she’s three, I hope. Or not. Whatever. I could go on and on with this subject but I have other things to blog about.
Like the Meanie Greenie Pah Monsters!
It was one of those days where the hours before bedtime waxed long and I didn’t really want to go to the boring old park AGAIN. I’m so bored of the park.
Sometimes on my way to the park, I squeeze my eyes shut and wish that some kind of amazing toddler-appropriate theme park with rides and trampolines and big blow-up bounce houses would magically appear where the old sandbox and swings and dumb winding-pipe slide is. And while I’m daydreaming maybe there would be slushie stand where you could get tequila in your slushie if you knew the right password or something. Just kidding!
Anyway! The park is boring and I didn’t want to go. It was a cold gray day and I wanted to stay inside because I’m a lazy homebody, I admit it. What I really wanted to do was play on my computer.
So I did what any laptop addict would do in my situation. I cajoled Baby Bug into sitting on my lap and “helping” me play on my computer. This is sort of tricky since she has a very short attention span. Though my adobe illustrator skills are keen, they are not quite fast enough or entertaining enough for her. I had to work fast. With her help in picking out colors and directing where the eyeballs should go, we made some monsters. Then we had to give them pahs. Because anything that is worth anything has to have a pah of course.
I printed them out onto iron-on transfer paper and ironed them onto some old muslin I had around. Then I sewed them up into little pillows except this time I filled them with rice instead of stuffing.
So now they are bean bags! Or rice bags, if you want to get technical. I suppose this means I could nuke them in the microwave and put them on my aching shoulder muscles too but that was not my purpose in creating them.
Meet the Pah Monsters. That’s Greenie, Pinky and Yellowie. Pinky is sad because he does not have a pah. Obviously. Baby Bug took to them right away (and why would she not since she helped create them) and has acted out several play-time conversations with them.
Most of her conversations have Pinkie crying dramatically and Yellowie saying “Nah nah nah, I have all the pahs!” or something like that. I know. What am I encouraging here? Anyway, they are fun and they work pretty well for tossing into holes cut in a box too.
Bean bags are great. I think I’ll be making more of these.
71 Comments
Jennifer
I love the Pah monsters!! You are so creative and fun. Our pacifiers around here are called ME-ME’s. I guess that was Audrey’s way of saying binky. We call Molly’s pacis me-me now. When she starts babbling more, maybe we’ll have another word for them.
I was reading a toddler developmental book the other day and it said that it is perfectly acceptable to allow your toddler to use a paci well into the age of 4. The only reason we pushed the end of the bink over here was Audrey’s lack of speech. She still has hers at bedtime and she shows much love for her me-me when she goes to bed.
SleepyNita
You should totally sell them on Etsy. I would buy a set!
Kristen
I love your art SO MUCH! It is adorable and creative, and your pictures of it all are beautiful…. even the one of the glass of Pahs. I love looking at your creations. The Pah monsters drove me over the edge to comment and share the love! I don’t have any kids though, so no pah insights from me.
Pictou
There’s always the cold-turkey=screaming-sleepless-tantrum method. I wasn’t so lucky, I had a thumb sucker. The rule at age 4 was “no random thumb sucking.” She had to be in bed to suck her thumb. If caught, she was sent to take a nap, which she hated.
She was 8 with a retainer that finally made her quit.
Angella
Oh, how I envy your creativity!
As for the “pah”, don’t sweat it. Miss Emily sucks her thumb. NO IDEA how I’ll break that habit. For now? I don’t care :)
sizzle
You’re so creative with keeping things interesting. How could she ever be bored with you as her Mom? :)
Kim
Everything happens for a reason, I believe… Pahs monsters are gonna hit it big. Get a patent on this thing.
You’re so creative. And a great mommy for “letting” her do her pah thing.
Pam D
My niece used her “bob” until she was 3 1/2. Then her dentist told my SIL that she would need to stop using bob.
So my SIL & bro had a party – tied helium balloons to her bobs and let them go “to help the other kids that needed them”…then had a “goodbye bob” cake/party… No issues since.
Love the “pah” monsters!
a madhouse wife
Yes! Totally sell those in your Etsy! I would buy them. We are still using the “pass” here, but I don’t care. Regardless of all the PA comments from my in-laws, my baby isn’t even 2 yet, so I’m not fighting that battle right now. She talks a-plenty, so I refuse to worry about it. I wish I was creative and had a sewing machine though, because we had a very long and very boring afternoon around here (one nap over by 1:30, one not taken at all). I would have loved to go to the park, but I think one of the lighter children might have blown away! ;(
amy
brill! You should also make a little pah spaceship to send them off in when it is time to blast the pahs to pah planet where they are recycled for babies…We threw our “diddies” into the giant dumpster behind Finn’s daycare for the dumpster diddy fairy the day he turned three- the Pah way sounds much more sweet. xo
amy
and yes I mean make em and sell em on etsy!!!! :) hurrah!
Victoria
I love that you’re so creative!
ginger
A friend of ours had a goodbye party for the paci’s, too. All the paci’s were put in a little bag for the “paci fairy,” who would come in the night and take them, replacing the bag of paci’s with something new and wonderful, something coveted. I forget what the actual thing was, but the kiddo was 4. She just turned 6. She speaks just fine. No dental problems. Sometimes, you just gotta let the kid decide when it’s time. (Did I mention the Doodle wasn’t potty-trained until she was almost 4? She finally decided she was ready.)
Bug's mama
My Bug is totally into her binkies too!!! We’re going on 20 months and no end in sight. I say let it go, she’ll give it up when she’s ready. We may start the “only in bed and in the car” thing at two……..maybe! LOVE the Pah Monsters!
Lisa G
Now I’m dreaming of a slushie stand where you can get tequila in your slushie if you want…
Julia
my son is now 22, but used his “tootchie” until he was 4.5 years old and a friend saw him with it. He had to have a “hard tootchie” (in his mouth) and a “soft tootchie” (broken in) to rub on his nose when falling asleep. impossible to replace a “soft tootchie” as it must be worn in over time. I once made my husband climb down into a deep ravine at Epcot to retrieve a lost “soft tootchie” so as not to destroy the vacation. the monsters are so adorable, you are so creative.
Danielle
These are adorable! We had a “Papu” fairy to help… but it didn’t.
BUT!
Do you have any tips for that Iron On paper? I have made fun shirts for the boys, but they never hold up. It’s like they don’t get hot enough, and then it flakes off after one day.
I follow the directions on the packaging, but was wondering if you had any sort of trick of the trade…
SAJ says: Here is what I wrote in an email to you (I’ll just post it here in case anyone else is curious):
Here is what I do. Maybe you do some of these things differently?
I buy the Office Depot Brand of heat transfer paper.
I make sure my iron is bone dry. NO water in the steam area.
I let it heat up for 8 minutes.
I iron them on my fabric on a pillow case on my counter (not an ironing board).
I push down as hard as I can and count to 40 or so.
I let them cool completely before I peel the transfer paper off.
That’s all I got. I hope that helps!
Valerie
Riley still uses her passies and I don’t care. In the big scheme of things, is it really THAT important that she still uses one, like most people try to make me believe? No. She’s 2 1/2.
BeachMama
I love the Pah Monsters. And bean bags are great for so many things. I have an eye pillow I made using flax seed instead of rice. J uses it for tossing, for aches, for warming up in bed. Only I don’t get to use it :).
And don’t fear the Pah addiction, J was sucking his fingers until just recently (he was four and a half when he finally gave them up). Everybody had something to say, but I knew he wouldn’t be sucking them forever so I let him give them up when he was ready. And he hasn’t looked back, he went cold turkey. BB will give up the Pah’s when she is ready.
Britt
I am fighting the good battle against the bottle, so I feel your pain. And, it’s not that I WANT to fight it, it’s that society tells me I should be fighting it.
Those monsters are great, make a bottle version, and I’ll take three:)
Kathleen
We are also a pacifier family — I’d love to see the Pah monster on your etsy shop. I have a suggestion for CC the sewing maven too — I’ve been looking for cute crib skirts, but all the etsy shops sell them as part of big expensive bedding sets with bumpers and quilts and things. If she could get some of that darling retro fabric and just make some crib skirts (maybe a little matching lumbar pillow??), I’d be sold . . .
pinky
pinkie pah monster! I love it!
you can pry my little green Soothie pacifiers from my cold, dead hands – little man doesn’t always take one, but when he wants it, he REALLY wants it!
Rhi
So cute! And, poor Pinky!
My niece Alana at 18 months was totally off her “paddy” until Auntie had her for the weekend and took her to Target. I was picking up some outfits for her (cause that’s what Auntie’s do) and she saw the paddy display and reached for them. So, I bought them, and have NOT heard the end of it since. She’s 5 now, and off the paddy – but nobody will let me forget that!
Kandace
You are so inspiring…did you know that? I mean I am kidding at all. I am about to be a SAHM for the first time and I’ve never sewed before in my life and now? After seeing this post I think I need a sewing machine.
AMAZING…you need some in your Etsy shop!
Amanda
Love, love, love the pah monsters!! My son calls it his “me-me” and we are very slowly trying to wean him off of his. He always wants it in the morning but that is because he isn’t a morning person. =)
I agree that you should add some to you shop, I totally would buy them (and they would be my first esty purchase)!
Jummy
You are so stinkin’ creative! I’m constantly amazed and impressed by it, SAJ!
Becky
Brenda, you think of all kinds of amazing things. Now BB can carry the bean bag around instead of a pah.
Amanda
I love how you design, print, transfer, sew, sew and stitch these adorable bean (rice) bags up in one afternoon. Amazing! They’re adorable.
Thankfully, I never had to battle the pah monsters. My boys spit out their pacifiers and continued to wail… There were so many times that I longed for them to change their minds and take the darn pah so I could have some peace. :-) But then I would have had to break them of the habit later. Which is worse?!
brooke
When i was little i had the same fixation with my “precious.” my mom asked the doctor about it and he said there was nothing wrong with me keeping them, because they actually helped my teeth, just as long as she made me take them out to talk. So whenever i turned four my parents decided to get me a horse, {my dad broke horses for a living, i’m not a TOTAL spoiled brat :) } and when i got the horse, i had to give up the pacifiers. and i still look at pacifiers longingly, even though i know a 20 year old with a pacifier would look mighty odd… don’t make her give it up…
Kate
In my house, it’s a “poke”. Zoë’ll be 3 in September and is very attached to her pokey. I probably should limit it’s use to naptime and bedtime because the girl wants to have it all day, but somehow it’s just not that important to me. My son used his until just after turning 3 when we legitimately lost it one night. He went to sleep just fine and when we found it the next day, we cut the tip and told him it had gotten broken. He never had one minute of an issue about not having it any more – he was ready. Little sister might be a different story, although she has other comfort items, like her blankies and kitty. I also heard that a study was done that showed that kids who had their pacifiers taken away from them before they were ready had higher chances of having other oral fixations: smoking, nail biting, etc.
And I second what everyone has said about your Pah monsters – too cute! You’re just so creative. I wish I knew how to make graphics like that. Thanks for sharing your creations with us!
ninabi
Love the pah monsters!
My little sister was addicted to her pacifiers. You know how they can’t give them up- so stressful! My mother took cuticle scissors and cut a tiny sliver off of each of them every day. After a few weeks, all my toddler sister had were a handful of useless pacifiers. She carried them around for comfort and then she lost interest.
Melissa
My son’s was his ‘pooh’. He bounced all the time and we called him Tigger. So, we had a tigger with a pooh.
You are my inspiration for follow through! I love how you decide to do a project and it is completed in one sitting/process. Incredible.
amyinbc
OK that is FAR more creative than I EVER got during my ‘bored out of my mind staying home with the toddler stage’ :) Good on you!
Jamie
You are very creative. Such a cute little story. So sorry baby bug fell off the pah wagon. My daughter (who just turned two) called her pacifer’s Pah’s also. About two months ago or so we “sent” all of her pah-pah’s away to the babies who needed them, because she’s a big girl now. She wanted to check the mail for them daily for the first week or so but now she’s really good without them. You never know what will work. They say when they’re ready you’ll know.
Gramma
I understand they call them “soothers” in Canada…and that is just what they do. Maybe I would have had better adjusted children if I had gone the pacifier route.
Love your beanbags!
amyinbc
BTW son was addicted to his ‘suckie’ till he was 4.5. He was restricted to keeping the suckies in his bed for nap and bed time only. Then his twin sisters came home and they were ‘allowed all the time Mommy!”. After careful explanations of how babies needed suckies more than 4 year olds this was deemed ok by son.
Until he repeatedly stole every soother (suckie) out of twin baby sisters mouths when they were napping. If you have ever had ONE baby wake crankily from a disrupted nap you can feel my pain. But TWO??
Suckies were banned soon after son’s pillow revealed 11 soothers hidden within. And then we stopped :) And we all survived!!! Really!
Pumpkin
My oldest gave hers up around three after she saw her second cousin which was a ‘baby’ with one. She gave me the pacifier and told me she wasn’t a baby and never wanted it again.
I have went through it with all four of my children. Don’t worry she will give it up when she is ready.
The bean bags are too cute. :)
cc
I love the Pah Monsters!!!
And I am looking at a new machine. So Kathleen’s idea is a definite possibility.
OMSH
They are so cute.
Especially the LIME one.
He and Mr. OMSH could be great monster friends. :~)
Annabanana
So cute! I missed you! Well it is my fault I was in art hell after all, but my gosh, this was a great pick me up!
Gingermog
You are the funnest mum ever! Mine used to help me make wigwam’s in the garden but she’s not so good at the making stuff, but is kind and patient, even with me making messes all over the place.
Pacifiers are called Dummies over here. Wait, I think they still are… ? Well when I was a little they were and I used to wander around with one. I gave it up before the age of 3. I used to nibble my plastic toys though, so maybe I didn’t give it up totally.
You need a magic park near you. Maybe one day you wills crunch up your eyes and open them to see a festival or something? Or a guy drawing trees on wood just using a magnifying glass and the sun (a young man does this on Victoria Island). I am very lucky I live near the Mary Poppins park, so far I haven’t found any chimney sweeps dancing about but there is a beautiful carousel that mysteriously appears mid summer and vanishes again.
Kuky
The pah monsters are great!
And our doctor said the same thing. Except about breastfeeding. She said Isabelle doesn’t really need it anymore. And our dentist said not to breastfeed her to sleep. And ummm yeah…that’s what they said. But ummmm I don’t know how to get her to stop. Getting her to sleep with breastfeeding her?! Really? Such a thing can be done?!
In fact, if I’m going to be truthful, she breastfeeds all the freakin’ time. She just takes a sip whenever she wants. She’s taking a sip now as I’m typing this!!
Lisa
those are fantastic! you need to sell those in your Etsy shop! also, question: what brand of iron-transfer paper do you use??? i have not been able to find any that looks as vibrant and opaque as yours and i’m desperate! thanks so much for sharing your ideas (as usual)!
SAJ says: I use the Office Depot brand. I didn’t think it was anything special but I guess it’s not bad either.
Island Mummy
Those are fantastic! Yes, we call them soothers up here, which I must say I prefer, pacifier has a negative connotation to me… sort of a subduing rather than comforting, if you follow me.
My daughter never went for them though, for her it’s 2 fingers all the way!
As she is getting older she talks so much they aren’t in her mouth as much, but when watching TV or if bored in the carseat, or zoned out for whatever reason – in they go.
Audrey
Our pediatrician suggested that Christmas is a good time to give up the pacifier. For several weeks before Christmas, you build up the whole Santa thing. Then you explain that on Christmas Eve, all of the pacifiers need to be left out for Santa to take away and, in exchange, the child will get presents and the pacifiers will be taken to the babies.
I saw this same concept on one of the nanny shows, too, though they did a fairy. I think that the idea is to give the child something to look forward to, to make them believe that the pacifiers are needed elsewhere, and to remove them from your house altogether.
When I nannied, we had the kids throw their own pacifiers away in the icky garbage can and even had to break the baby of her binki since the older kids would just take hers. But, it worked, and worked well.
All that said, my daughter is 15 months old and I dread breaking the binki habit…
bluejaye
I’m going to come back and read all of these laater.
You can put these in the freezer for boo-boo’s. I have an old sock filled with rice that works great for hot flashes.
Long live the pah monster.
Chris
Hi- did you get my email re the banner? Also, you’ll have to let us know- coffee or cash? :) We’re good for either.
On a separate note: can you come live at my house? My kids would much prefer you and your awesome creativity and fun than my boring-ness and focus on getting their chores done.
Jennifer
I forgot to mention yesterday that Emily, now 6, STILL sucks her thumb quite frequently. I think we’re going to have to use hypnosis to get her to stop.
Harmony
Those are some fancy pahs Baby Bug has going on – love them.
I wouldn’t worry about her giving them up, when my 3 boys are in a phase I try to imagine them doing it when they are 18 – it isn’t going to happen. She’ll give them up when she is ready.
Ellen W
My son (2 1/2) sucks his thumb which bothers my husband more than me. What I’m not ready to do is abandon all sippy cups as I think about the number of messes at mealtime multiplying. I do use the one with the straws which are better than the ones with spouts (according to my son’s speech therapist).
If my son sees any child with a paci, he calls them a baby even if they are probably the same age as him. I guess in his mind thumb sucking is totally different.