The end of summer drew near, and it was time for a tiny little girl to put away her tiny little girl things. The bright blue day came for Larkin — after much fear and trembling — to say goodbye to Binky.

We all had been preparing for a long time. It began a year ago with a cute book called Binky, in which a diaper-wearing infant looks everywhere for his lost pacifier, finally finding it "in my crib, just where I like it best." Next came two other books, Bye-Bye Binky and Branli Says Bye-Bye to Binky — gentle valedictories whose respective protagonists, Nori and Branli, say tearful goodbyes, only to discover that life post-pacifier indeed does go on.

But Larkin wasn't in any hurry. At night she insisted on having not only a binky in her mouth, but two or three backups in the crib, at the ready. Her extensive collection occupied a bowl on the kitchen counter, where every night before going up to bed she could take her pick. "My wonderful binky!" she'd exclaim, grabbing one. Molly and I wondered how we'd ever separate her from them.

What saved us were her sharp teeth and a habit of chewing on the pacifiers. We decided to let attrition form the timeline for Larkin's debinkification: whenever she chewed a hole in a pacifier, we explained, it was time for that one to go; and when the day came that she chewed through the last binky, that would be the final farewell.

One by one her collection shrank, until a lone pacifier remained. Made of a single piece of rubbery molded plastic, translucent and greenish-blue in tint like the old Coke bottles, it was a binky Larkin had never liked, which is why it was the last option. It also proved the most resistant to being bitten through — or maybe, with the end in sight, she eased up. Anyway, she kept the bottle-blue binky in play for at least two months. "It's like it's going to last forever," Molly groaned.

And then, last week, the little hole finally appeared.

We had decided on a farewell ceremony adapted from the Nori book, which ends with Nori's pacifier tied to a helium party balloon, sailing away into the yonder. "Tomorrow we're going to set your binky free," we told Larkin. "And then we can go to the toy store and choose a special friend to take its place."

"I don't want to set binky free," she pouted. "I want to put my binky in my mouth."

Morning came, and she delayed. Where usually she fights to go barefoot, now she insisted on putting her shoes on – and doing it herself. Finally she was ready, and by the time we were in the car, she seemed excited. We asked her: Where did she think Binky would go once she set it free?

"Anywhere," she said. "It's going anywhere."

We drove to the party store and bought three balloons, red, orange and yellow. (I'd had a nightmare vision of Binky, tethered to a single balloon, hovering and then settling back to earth.) At the park, Molly tied the balloons to the pacifier, and the three of us walked out to the middle of the enormous green lawn between the rose gardens and the pond. We handed Larkin the pacifier, and reflexively she put it in her mouth. Then she took it out and, without protest or delay, let it go. Up it shot – faster than I had thought.

"Bye-bye, Binky!" Molly and I called, trying to sound exuberant. But we didn't have to worry; Larkin was caught up in the thrill of the moment. "Can I still see it?" she asked, breathless. "Where is it?" We stood there, squinting up into the deep blue, watching the balloons get smaller and smaller, until we couldn't see them anymore.

Afterward, as promised, we went for an ice cream, and then to the toy store, where Larkin picked out a big pink stuffed pig, which she named Binky. Later, in the car on the ride home, she said, in a quiet voice, "I really miss my binky." But her adjustment has been easier than we expected. Lying in her crib at night, she asks for her pacifier, but doesn't complain when we hand her Binky the Piglet to cuddle with instead. She actually seems to be sleeping better.

The truth is, Larkin was matter-of-fact about saying goodbye to her pacifier; it was Molly and I who had to hold back our emotions. I almost lost it when Larkin spoke up in the car — the way she didn't whine or wheedle, but simply spoke the truth of her feelings. And Molly burst out crying when she saw the certificate I created, adorned with images of balloons and binkies, and issued by the "Dep't of Debinkification":

This is to certify
that on this day of 23 August 2008
Larkin Fehr Cooper
said goodbye to her Very Last Wonderful Binky
and earned the right to be called
a Big Girl

The day left me thinking about rites of passage — how ritual incorporates the big events of our lives into a show, delivering a momentous sense of the before and after. Rites of passage take us through anticipation, to celebration and finally satisfaction. And a touch of sadness, too. To Larkin herself, the sight of those disappearing balloons brought concern about tonight (no binky!), offset by the excitement of the spectacle and (more important) the promise of ice cream. Molly and I, meanwhile, had our own ambivalence, the mixed feelings parents tend to have about progress in their children's lives. It's the feeling of something gained, but something lost as well: our daughter's babyhood, sailing off into the blue, never to return.