Angelina is sitting on the ottoman next to me...sucking on her binkie and playing on her brother's Kindle...
Me: Hey Ang? When are you going to give up that binkie?
Angelina: Um...when I'm older?
Me: What is "older?"
Angelina: Um...when I'm 7!
All three of my kids were breast fed...and all three of my kids wanted to suck to self-soothe. I started out as a pacifier nazi. I didn't want that little piece of rubber anywhere near their precious little mouths, lest they suffer from nipple confusion and suddenly lose the ability to latch on. I held that position throughout my entire first pregnancy. From the instant I saw the plus sign on that pregnancy test, I knew that I was going to breastfeed and I knew I wanted nothing to do with pacifiers. That stance lasted until Rosie was about a day old. The child wouldn't stop screaming...except for when she was sucking. This new, first-time mom was exasperated.
Finally, after watching me cry for three straight hours, the nursery nurse suggested trying a binkie -just for an hour or two. Just so I could sleep. So I did. And it was liberating.
Binkies saved my breast feeding efforts. Because of those beautiful little things, I was able to nurse my babies without being a human pacifier. After a while, though, I needed to wean them off. Rosie abandoned hers when she was just shy of 3. I had planned on letting her keep it until she was 18 months - but by that point, I was pregnant with RJ and generally unwilling to remove anything that was a comfort to her. Our first vacation after RJ's birth, however, we "left" her bink at home. She never looked back.
RJ was the same deal - he ditched his binkie long before starting school on a weekend-long trip to Nonna & Papou's house. Of course, Nonna had a binkie - but the purpose of him being there was to get rid of it.
Angelina? She is a completely different story. As a baby, she was eager to be a big kid. She wanted to ditch the crib and be in a bed. Anything her sister does, she wants to do too. Anything RJ wants to attempt - she tackles it with gumption. All of our childproofing efforts went out the window with Angelina...she proved us unprepared at every step. So why does this little one who has been so anxious to be "big"insist on keeping this tie to her babyhood?
Because she can. Because she knows I will let her. Because she knows that while she is big enough to sleep in her bed and go to school, shower and dress herself...I, her mother, am not ready to not have a baby anymore. She is a smart cookie, that Angelina - she knows full well that I am clinging desperately to her babyhood and she is going to milk it for all it is worth!
