With Harpo, I discussed the situation with him, got out a calendar and had him pick an end date. On that date, I told him it was May 9 (or whatever it was), and he said OK, and that was that.
The other two weren't quite so easy (they argued a certain amount for extensions!), but really, the date thing worked reasonably well for them, too.
With all of them, I made sure they had tons of extra cuddles and Mummy time (reading or whatever); we also took them to a store and let them pick some special "big boy" thing--I remember Harpo picked a brush and comb and Groucho picked a rubber snake(!)--can't remember Chico's item. We didn't--and don't--buy a lot of just "stuff", so they could see that this was a special landmark sort of occasion.
Hope that will help a bit--it's a toughie--and I expect you will miss it as much as she will, which is hard, too.
peace
minnie
PS Edited to add that I just noticed that in your case you don't think it's a good idea to talk to her about it--so my suggestion is not very useful, I'm sorry! I guess I'll leave the post up anyway, in case it helps somebody else later.
With my three, discussion has always been key--they want to understand the whys and wherefores of decisions that affect them. With weaning, I just explained that there were ages appropriate to different activities--that one gets a driver's license at 16, votes at 18, gets a pension at 65, and weans at 3 (in our case; our dr. advised extended nursing for various health reasons); oddly enough, this explanation really worked pretty well at our house.
Last edited by minniemarx; 04/16/10 09:29 PM.
