Binky drama

Nora adores he binky. Loves it! And so do I. Crying in the car? No problem - just plug it in. Falls down and hits her head? No problem - just plug it in. Feeling overall sad and grumpy? Again - just plug it in and voila! Instant happiness. So when I decided to get rid of that wonderful piece of plastic before our next little one comes I didn't know how hard it would be on Nora - and me! I came up with this brilliant plan to let Nora pick out a baby doll at the store that we would buy for her once she was ready to throw all her binky's away. So every time we go to the store we would go see the baby and look at it and talk about how she could have it when she was ready to throw her binky's away. She's a smart cookie. She totally understood that part of it. On Saturday she was ready. We went to Wal-Mart to get the baby, once we were back in the toy section she changed her mind. So we went back home. On Monday we thought we'd try again. I took her to Meijer (a Michigan version of Super Wal-Mart) and she was excited! I had her remaining 3 binky's in a plastic bag and went right back to the baby and put it in the cart without any hesitation on Nora's part. She kept saying "Fro binky in garbage, cut strings off mine baby!" She really wanted that baby out of the box. I bought the baby and we stopped at a garbage can and she happily tossed in the bag of binky's without a second thought (from her at least..... I felt the beginning stages of sheer panic!) Once home she was quite proud of herself, showing Sophie and Brian and our neighbors her new baby and telling them she threw her binky's away. The rest of the day went well and I was feeling very hopeful. Moments before she was supposed to climb into bed she fell and hit her head and immediately started crying for her binky. I offered her the new baby with a gentle reminder that she threw her binky's away and she threw the baby across the room and yelled, "NO baby! I want mine binky!!" Uh-oh. We tried for an hour to calm her down, reminding ourselves that she'd have to fall asleep eventually. Then I started questioning my motives for taking the binky away. Does it really matter that much if she has it for a while longer? Was I feeling pressure because she is getting older? Do I feel like a bad mom because she still has it? Then I started telling myself that making her not have it was worse than taking it away too early. What if she started sucking her thumb? Or her blankets? Or her clothes? Her pediatrician says it won't do any harm to her teeth until she's 4 (not that I'm shooting for 4) So I gave in. I sent Brian down to the nearest Rite-Aid. And we all went to bed happy. And yes, in case you were wondering, we did take the baby back - until she's more ready. At first I felt like I'd failed - okay, I guess I did - but letting her have it a while longer isn't going to hurt anything - especially since she's gotten so darn good at finding it by herself during the middle of the night! :)