Bye, Bye Paci

I'm obviously an enabler. I admit it. I didn't realize it until recently but as the facts are staring me in the face - it is obvious.

My daughter sucked her thumb until she was 9. I thought I'd tried everything to help her stop but now I'm doubting that seriously. When she was about 4, the dentist said "time to stop". So I went thru the motions of telling her it was time to stop. I tried reasoning with her. I tried bribing her. I put a sock on her hand before bed. I really thought I was giving it my all! Now I realize that somewhere deep down in my heart, I thought it was such a cute habit and seemed to make her so happy that I just couldn't commit myself 100% in the fight against the thumb.

How did I come to such a conclusion? Well, here we are almost 4 years later and it is past time (according to the dentist) for my son to give up the pacifier. I heard the same song and dance last year when the dentist mentioned it but I chose to ignore her. We were in the midst of potty training and it just didn't seem like the right time. Well, he's been potty trained for a year now and I still had not taken a single step toward giving up "White Blue" (his adorable name for his paci because his favorite one was well....white and blue). Last Monday, my mom took E to a new dentist (no I did not change to avoid the paci discussion as my mother thought). New dentist had the same opinion as old dentist - paci had to go. He suggested going to Build a Bear and putting Paci in a bear before sewing it up. As Mom is telling me this suggestion on the phone, I'm envisioning me and my hysterical son at Build a Bear tugging on a bear in a battle of wills while we both cry. I shiver at the thought. So that night, E comes home with his head hung low and tells me that he has to give up white blue. You should have seen his sad puppy dog eyes and his quivering lip. As we both sat in the middle of the kitchen floor (DH thought I'd lost my mind), E and I cried over the idea of putting white blue in a bear's tummy. There we sat on the cold tile and we both just sobbed. By the time I pulled my sore, sorry old buns off the floor - I reached in the cabinet and grabbed white blue. I handed it to my sweet cherub faced baby boy and told him we would wait awhile before going to Build a Bear. He was ecstatic and I was relieved the sadness could pass for now.

Flash forward one night. My DH was in charge of the bedtime routine (usually consisting of pj's, grab elephant blanket (known as "Old E E") and going to the kitchen cabinet for white blue). Well, Tuesday night was different. See, Daddy is a big believer in doing what the dentist says. He's a twice a year cleaning, floss every day kind of guy. Since he heard the story of the dentist's concerns over a possible cross bite and braces at 8 if we continued using a paci - he was determined to take action. So that night, E put on his pj's, grabbed Old E E and then daddy told him to pick out another baby to sleep with because he couldn't have white blue anymore. E came around the corner carrying Old E E and a small stuffed Barney. His eyes were sad and his lip was quivering but he was being brave for Daddy. I wanted so much to run to that kitchen cabinet and give my baby his paci but I knew Daddy was in charge of this battle and I needed to heed my boundaries. With tears and doubt in my heart, I watched as my baby boy struggled with this new bedtime routine. Amazingly he fell asleep without any issue and imagine my surprise when he slept thru the night w/o incident. Seven successful nights later and he stopped asking for white blue after the 2nd night.

I have to tell you that even though I'm proud of how this was handled, there is a part of me that just wants to go back to that cabinet and give my baby back his paci. You see, this was his final step toward becoming a big boy. I want my baby boy. I haven't pushed a single aspect of him growing up because I just wanted to freeze time or at least slow it down to a crawl. I know that is not realistic but time gets so much faster as I get older and I want to cherish every moment in his life.

So I'm the weak parent, I can live with that. And apologies to A for letting the thumb habit go on so long. I know now that I just didn't try very hard to get her stop because at the time I thought she was my last baby and I wanted to hold on to her childhood forever.