Breaking the habit

Ali has used a pacifier (ba) since babyhood. We've been trying to talk him out of it, and he thought giving them to the ba fairy and getting a gift a good idea, but it never quite took. A few months ago he had to sleep without one as we couldn't find it, but I ended up getting him a new one, and then of course we found the old ones. Last week, however, we couldn't find any of them at bedtime. It was hard, but he managed to sleep without it. The next day his leapster 2 arrived from Amazon. This was fortuitous as we were able to convince him that this was a good swap for the ba. He agreed, and even signed a contract with Baba and James (aka Leila) as witnesses. It said- "No Ba." Now he generally asks for his ba once or twice before bedtime. He often renounces the leapster in the hopes that will get him his ba back. But the truth is, we don't know where the darn things are anyway. (Hopefully we don't find them). The newest ploy is to tell him he's now able to sleepover at a friend's because he doesn't use the ba anymore. And, with minimal fussing, he manages to sleep. Thank goodness! We thought we'd be prying it out of mouth when he went away to college.