A Step

I was looking at him, the other day, and I thought, "We can do this! You and I, we can."

You see, it seems, with children, and the sort of jumping over the hump of whatever challenge they are facing, it's often the parent who needs to get the heck over it, less than the child.

As it has been with the blasted binky. See, the binky has been Oliver's dearest friend in the world for most of his life. He is my first lover-of-the-paci. The first two had absolutely no interest. But due to Oliver's issues with breastfeeding, and all things that went with it, a pacifier became our lifesaver, he and I.

But he's well past two now. He's getting to be more outspoken and opinionated every day. He's a "big boy." He was getting there.

Mama, on the other hand, relied heavily on the binky as a "you can go to sleep now because you have your binky!" crutch.

A crutch for a lame mama.

But ther other day, I was looking at him and he was chatting and talking and laughing, and I saw. We can do it.

I didn't say a word, I just slipped in before bed and removed his entire stash (there were six). I stuck them in a drawer, high and away. I wasn't willing to actually throw them away. What if I caved, and needed them? Derek wasn't home, off at work. If we failed, we'd just keep our attempt our little secret.

There were some tears, some "Please binky, please!" (The politeness nearly broke my heart!) But I hugged him and sang and laid him down three different times, and his brothers, his sweet big brothers cheered him on. "Oliver! You're a big boy!" and that night much earlier than I expected, he went to sleep.

The next day, at nap time, he simpy whined for it once, and then drifted off.

I still have those binkies in the drawer, but we're good. He's clean. I'm clean. We're sober.

He's just so awesome.

Go Oliver!