An excerpt from an email Susan sent to her mother, Monday, 15 September 2014:

We boxed up Fiona’s pacifier last night [Sunday, 14 September]. I don’t think I have ever been so proud of her. I had stashed it away since Friday afternoon [12 September], so she hadn’t even seen it, and, aside from one time on Saturday afternoon when I caught her borrowing Colin’s, she hadn’t used or even asked for a pacifier. On Saturday night, when she went to bed with her string blanket, she tried holding on to her string but she said, “It just does not feel the same. It doesn’t feel normal!” Then, yesterday when I brought her pacifier out again to pack it up, she popped it into her mouth and snuggled with her string blanket one last time. She said, “Mama, it feels normal!” She said it with such bittersweet joy that it made me a little sad. Dustin took some pictures of her with it for the last time, and then started taking the plastic wrap off of the box she picked out. When she saw that, she hopped off my lap and went right over there to put her little pacifizer inside. It seemed a little bit like she wanted to hurry so she wouldn’t change her mind. Then we put it into the shipping box and she helped tape it up, and then turned to me and said, “Mama, I still feel a little bit sad.” I told her I understood and that I was proud of her. I think I might have been at least as sad as she was. I guess little girls have to stop using pacifiers sometime, but I kind of wish they didn’t.

Anyway, you can be expecting a package sometime soon, although we haven’t mailed it yet. What a good little girl we have. We are very lucky.

Love,
Susan