What do all these pictures having in common?
Are they showcasing the fact that my child needs her hair brushed more often? Well, yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’ll give you a hint. It’s multi-colored plastic made from evil. That’s right.
The binky.
Smushy is 32 months old and is still completely attached to that thing. I’ve tried limiting access in the past and it works for about a week until I cave because it’s just. so. easy. Give it to her and she’s happy and stops crying/screaming/whining.
Ahhh, silence.
But it is way past time to get rid of it. I am done. I am done with making sure I always know where they are. (“They” because one isn’t enough. She needs one for her mouth and at least one in each hand to be happy.) I am done with worrying when I can’t find one and searching frantically at bedtime. Not to mention with all the other changes we have coming up, it’s now or 3 months from now in the middle of potty training with Mr. Silly being deployed. Enough is enough already.
I am more than ready to stop taking pictures like this:
and the hundreds more like it.
Yesterday we searched the house and found as many binkys as we could and bagged them up. Smushy chose a toy and “paid” for them with her bag of binkys. We had talked up the new toy for a few days and she was pretty excited to go through with it.
We didn’t even make it to the car before she started asking for them. It was a gorgeous day, so pretty easy to distract her with playing outside (where she didn’t ever have a binky anyway). She asked for them a few more times at home and had a couple of tantrums over them being gone.
At nap time, she screamed for an hour and a half before we gave up on sleep and went to play outside. I was hoping she would go to bed early, but the phone wouldn’t stop ringing, so I didn’t actually get her down until later than I’d wanted. She cried (and screamed her lungs out) for about 15 minutes before she fell asleep. There were a few almost wake-ups when her hands would search for a binky and she fussed a little, but she never fully woke up enough to get mad about it. When I woke up at 3:30 to feed the baby, she was sleeping in our bed next to Mr. Silly.
All in all, not terrible for night 1. I’m hoping she takes a nap today and that tonight goes well.