As Colby was quickly approaching 3 years old, the age I had decided the binky had to be gone by, we needed a fun and creative way to say good bye to his binky. Preferablly, something that would not cause a lot of trauma, crying, and sleepless nights for the whole family. Jordan's mom always told us of her friend who wrote a little book for her kids about a binky bug that you came and nibbled away at the binky until it was gone. I thought this was a cute idea, but didn't have the book, or the time to sit and make one. I decided to create a simple binky bug out of construction paper and scissors. I started telling Colby several weeks before that the bugs were going to eat his binky. He was excited when he saw the binky bug. I told him it was hungry and we needed to feed it. He immediatly got one of his already broken binkies for the bug to eat. This was no real loss since he had more. The bug had to be fed every day. We had 3 or 4 binkys floating around the house. He thought this was fun until we got down to his last and final binky. He refused to feed his last binky to the binky bug. He would say, "No, feed it this one" and hand me one of the already "eaten" binkies. He was onto my game! At this point, we were close to our Utah trip and didn't want to travel with him mourning the recent loss of his beloved "mommy". While in Utah I learned another trick from my mother in law (who says mother-in-laws are not good for parenting advice!). She told me that Lisa, my sister-in-law, had broken her youngest of the binky habit by simply saying "yuck" every time she put the binky in her mouth. I started doing the same thing with Colby when we returned from Utah. He responded perfectly. When I said yuck, he would take out the binky, throw it to the ground, then say, "the bugs will eat it". After just a day of this, he wanted to feed his last binky to the bug. We pulled out the scissors and cut a whole in it. He threw it down and then started looking for another one. He didn't realize that was THE one he had just let the bug eat, but he went on his way. He had a few tears several hours later when he had fallen asleep in the car and was tired and cranky, but quickly got over it. That night he asked for his "mommy" before bed. In an attempt to avoid a meltdown I started looking for it, even though the tip was cut, so he would have something, but before I could find it he said, "no, the bugs ate it" and went to sleep. He has asked for it a few times since and when I remind him the bugs ate it he goes on his way. So, with 2 weeks to spare and no tears, the binky, or "mommy", is officially gone for good!