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A Picky Addiction

We have an almost-emergency happening at our house. It’s my fault, really. I started it and now I’ve got to deal with the consequences. Actually, if you really want to blame someone, I suppose I could shift it onto my mother’s shoulders. It was her idea. She actually actively pursued the situation in which I find myself. It all started with “Binky Camp.”

When Eva was born, she took a pacifier for about 15 seconds. Then she decided they were stupid and began gagging violently every time I tried to put one in her mouth.  I continued on with this fruitless endeavor only because I come from a “Binky Culture,” where children who squawk get a piece of rubber between their lips. Plus it is well known that newborns relish 2-3 hours a day of “non-nutritive sucking.” AND it decreases the SIDS risk. But after a couple weeks I stopped bothering and we were happy, albeit moderately frustrated during those moments when Eva clearly needed some self-soothing activity and was at a complete loss.
My mother, however, refused to believe that a baby wouldn’t take a Binky. (OK, I admit that I’ve rolled my eyes a few times when parents told me that as well. I mean, what baby doesn’t take a pacifier? Seriously.) So at Christmas we arrived at my parents’ house to find an actual Binky Display. Every imaginable shape and size pacifier was laid out on the kitchen table. And my mother spent the next 72 hours trying, in vain I add, to get Eva to do anything other than act like she was having a large stick shoved down her throat. At the end of the weekend, even Grandma was willing to accept defeat and the Binky nonsense ended.  For a month.
Then, suddenly out of nowhere, Eva started taking her Bink. Not the standard pacifier, but only the Soothie kind they give you in the hospital. And she used it to go to sleep. And I could stick it in her mouth when she made noise. Everyone was happy. Except for one little thing.
They don’t sell “Soothies” in the UK, where we live. We’ve been surviving on the occasional “Binky Care Package” from the States. But you know what happens to pacifiers over time. They get lost, they fall out of the stroller, they get stolen by another kid at the park. (I actually found one on the sidewalk in our neighborhood and put it in my purse, hoping that it was my own child’s, so precious as they are. We haven’t used it but it’s still in there.)
So here’s the situation: we’re down to one (ONE) Binky. Grandma and Grandpa arrive Monday. Either they come with a bag of Eva’s preferred style and color or we’re going to have a rough few days heading our way. Then again, it would save me the trouble of having to break this habit in another few months…

Dr. Lara Zibners, Aug 19, 2010

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