Now How Do I Pacify Him?

I searched for it frantically at nap time.

My husband made late night runs to Walmart for more when all were lost.

I hiked from one end of the store to the other to find a bathroom to wash it off when it hit the floor.

Now the pacifier is gone.

When Wade was a newborn, he wouldn’t take the pacifier. I kept sticking it in his mouth anyway, and eventually it became his vice. And my crutch. It quieted him in restaurants. Helped him sleep better at night. Occupied his mouth while he waited for me to finish making dinner.

The pacifier became problematic when Wade started talking. He was so attached to the pacifier that at first he played in silence rather than give up his binki. Then he figured out how to talk around the pacifier, like a chain smoker who talks with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth. When we did get the pacifier out of his mouth we couldn’t understand anything he said. It seemed he didn’t know how to talk without it.

So I started limiting his pacifier use to nap and nighttime only. He didn’t like it, and asked for it several time a day. But his speech improved.

Then yesterday nap time came. I couldn’t find any of Wade’s pacifiers. I didn’t feel like searching for them, so to bed he went without. I braced myself for a lot of crying. Instead he fussed for a few minutes and fell asleep. I was sure there would be crying when we put him to bed for the night, but he didn’t even fuss. And he slept all night.

I still haven’t found those last two pacifiers. They’re probably with all the missing socks, and other three dozen pacifiers we lost over the last two years. Someday when we move we’ll find them all clustered under some heavy piece of furniture.

Wade seems to be doing just fine without his vice, but what about me? What will I do next time he starts throwing a fit in the store, and I don’t have anything to stick in his mouth? They are called pacifiers for  reason.

I better buy a bag of suckers, and put them in my purse.