Blessing in Disguise

On Friday night Jonathan started yelling at me. I quite groggily got up to see what he needed. He said something that I couldn't make out. I just said, Okay go back to sleep and he said Okay. So I figured that was easy and went back to bed. He called a couple more times, but I would just say okay to which he would reply okay and would lay back down. About twenty minutes later he just started screaming. It was apparently in the wrong part of my sleep cycle because I could hardly wake up enough to tell him to go back to sleep, so I had Andy get up to see what was going on. After a few minutes, I hear Jonathan say "Spit in bowl" which made me start to perk up (as that is what he says when he throws up). Then I hear Andy say, "Here is your pacifier" and Jonathan say "Yucky! Spit in bowl." Well that got me up, as I walked into the hall I could smell it. I still don't know how Andy didn't smell it, or me for that matter the one time I actually got out of bed to see what was wrong.
So, feeling bad that I had made him sit in his throw up for like a half hour because I couldn't wake up enough to go into his room and see what he was trying to tell me. Andy cleaned up his bed and got him changed and I got Hunter out of his room (no need to share these germs). When we got things all cleaned up and was putting Jonathan back to bed, Andy was in the kitchen cleaning Jonathan's pacifier. As we were talking, Andy said that he had put the throw-up covered pacifier in Jonathan's mouth (thus the yucky comment). So I had this idea to go with it. Jonathan is almost three and still uses his pacifier at bedtime. I was wondering how to break this habit. I was thinking that for his 3rd birthday we'd "mail" his pacifier to a new baby or something like that as he is old enough to get that and maybe the "pacifier fairy" would leave him a toy or whatever. But this was worth a shot! So, I went into Jonathan's room and when he asked for his pacifier, I just told him it was Yucky, and he remembered and so was fine with it and didn't ask for it again that night. (BTW, he didn't throw up again either).
So each night/nap time since than he has asked for his pacifier, but I have just said, "It's yucky still remember?" and he doesn't ask for it again. (Now, other times his pacifiers have disappeared he will REPEATEDLY ask for it over and over and over nice redundancy huh? so this is a big step that he isn't asking for it more than just the once.) Well, last night was the first night he didn't even ASK for his pacifier!!!! It is VERY exciting. The down side, is that he has woken up more during the night than usual, but I'm hoping that this will start to diminish as he gets used to not having his pacifier.
So I think I'm glad he threw up the other night. Never thought I'd say that!