Last week was pretty exciting around here – in addition to a wonderful Thanksgiving, we were blessed by an appearance by the Baba Fairy. Yes, that’s right – the Baba Fairy!

Not ringing any bells? I was in the dark until about three weeks ago, when my wife invented him (her?). Yes, the Tooth Fairy legend has been around for centuries, and other parents have come up with fairies to help them with getting rid of various baby-vices, such as pacifiers and blankets.  My wife dreamed up the Baba Fairy because we’d let the bottle-feeding process go on far too long.

Courtesy Bob Trott

Bob Trott had to enlist the help of the Baba Fairy to get daughter NJ to give up the botttle.

The premise is this: when time finally came for NJ to give up her bottle – and that time was a fixed date, the day after Thanksgiving – the Baba Fairy would collect them from our house and take them to babies who need them. As a thank-you to NJ, the fairy would leave a super-awesome gift.

About two weeks before D-Day, my wonderfully creative wife filled NJ in on the long, glorious, made-up history of the Baba Fairy, and she mentioned it in passing every couple of days. On the Big Day there was an official ceremony: NJ dropped all her bottles and bottle nipples into a pillowcase, then we all walked to the spare bedroom, where she put the pillowcase in the far corner. During NJ’s nap, the bottles vanished and a mysterious box appeared in its place.

Once bedtime came, NJ reflexively asked for her baba. My wife said something along the lines of “Oh, let’s see if the Baba Fairy has been here!” She and I feigned surprise with Oscar-worthy gusto as NJ picked up the box, put it on the bed and opened it. The Baba Fairy left her an adorable stuffed mouse. (NJ named it “Chi-Chi” initially, but inexplicably renamed it the much less awesome “Mouse.” I’d hoped she’d go with “O’Riley” so we’d have a “Baba O’Riley” thing going on.)

So add this one to the list of fibs we tell our kids that can really be elaborate, but at the same time relatively minor. Maybe we can even get enough Baba Fairy juice going so it takes its rightful place alongside the Stork that brings new babies to happy parents, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

My father-in-law might have been the Michael Jordan of fibbing to kids. In addition to the classics, he told his daughters that:

• He got all his waffles from a trunk in the attic;
• Money actually does grow on trees, and those trees are down at the bank;
• He found them as shiny newborns in a field, under a cabbage leaf.

While the Baba Fairy white lie is bad enough, the reason we concocted the white lie might be worse. We were woefully negligent on the whole getting-the-kid-off-the-bottle front.

NJ’s used a bottle roughly twice as long as she was supposed to, if all the stuff I read on the Internet about it (one year, at most) is true. Sure, there would be the occasional mom on a blog who’d say she was OK with her 30-month-old toddler still using a bottle despite what the experts say, but that mom always sounded a little defensive. We’d better get on this, I thought. (But we didn’t.)

There was a window several months ago when NJ almost decided babas were no longer necessary, and we went along with it. But when she asked for one after a couple of days, we quickly complied. She’s had one per day – in the evening, before story time and bed – for a long while now.

So then, the Baba Fairy. We just felt that it was the cleanest way out of the situation. We’d let a bad situation get worse and then lied about it in order to end it. Isn’t that what led to Nixon’s downfall?

Anyway, it seems to have worked – NJ has yet to squawk about not getting a bottle . And Mouse is a beloved new addition to her social-event-of-the-season stuffed animal tea parties. I suppose all is well and my wife and I should just vow to be more resolute as we forge ahead into the future.

As I’ve mentioned before, we’re warily circling potty training with NJ. I hope we don’t put this off like we did the bottle. Just to be safe, though, perhaps I should start working on a Potty Fairy back-story.

Have you ever used a fairy to help your kid quit a habit?

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