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Operation Pacifier

It's time. I can't take it anymore. The lack of sleep is killing me. Today officially marks Day One of Operation Pacifier.

When Benjamin was born, I was adamant about not giving him a pacifier. Instead, I encouraged him to soothe himself with his thumb. My reason was simple: I did not want to be tied to an object that could be dropped, lost, or soiled. His thumb would always be there and always accessible. (Yes, I know this lends itself to problems of breaking the sucking habit later, but I will deal with that when the time comes.) Happily, by two months old he had mastered the art of thumb sucking.

Of course, I hoped for the same thing with Brayden, but was less stringent. I figured that the first couple months would be easier for all of us if I let him have a pacifier until he figured out how to hold his thumb in his mouth. Unfortunately, my plan backfired and he became reliant on the binky for sleep and soothing. The very thing I dreaded happened. I became a slave to the that Soothie (the pacifier that the hospital so willingly provided us with). It got to the point that if I couldn't find that thing, my heart would start beating faster and I would break out into a cold sweat as I searched frantically for the little green devil. Not only was Brayden addicted, but I couldn't live without it, either.

We have a love-hate relationship, the pacifier and I. I love it when it instantly quiets my son, restoring peace both to him and to our household. I hate it when it falls out of his mouth five times in a span of two minutes, requiring me to pick it up and wash it off (or just guiltily give it a quick wipe on my jeans) before reinserting. I love it when it gets him by for just ten more minutes (or twenty...or thirty) when we are running errands and I can't feed him yet. I hate it when it's 2am and I have to get out of bed to go put it in his mouth so he will fall back asleep. For the fifth.Freaking.Time.

So it is time. The pacifier has got to go. This child has got to figure out another way to soothe himself or I am going to go absolutely insane both from the lack of sleep and from the panic attacks it induces when it goes MIA. So this morning at 5am, I took the Soothie away, effectively implementing Operation Pacifier.

God help us.

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