Bye Bye Binky!

For as long as we've had children, we've almost always also had binkies in the house. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, this is the children's pacifier. Their sucky thing. Their mute button. Their plug. In short, for the first couple of years of their lives, this thing has been their best friend.

Everywhere we've been for the past several years, we've had to make sure we had a binky on hand. If by some tragic chance, we happened to forget to bring it with us, bad things would happen. By bad, I mean nearly apocalyptic. There is weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. The kids cry, too.

If the child were to lose his or her binky in the middle of the night, Byron and I would often be found on our hands and knees looking under cribs, behind beds, in toy boxes, and in every nook and cranny we could think of to try and find the beloved pacifier.

CJ and Rachel were the two hardest to break of the habit, but I was starting to think Drezden would be pretty challenging, too. It was really hard to break Drezden of the habit when Liam was still using his binky at night. Drezden would find one around the house during the day and insist that he needed it for himself, even awake.

Two and a half weeks ago, something wonderful happened. Liam got his tonsils and adenoids removed and was in pain. I'm not saying the pain part was good, but it did lead to good things. He was so sore that he felt the need to chew on everything in sight. In a matter of three days, he'd chewed the tips off of just about every binky in the house. There was some whimpering and some tears and a few restless nights, but I'm proud to report now that both children have been binky-free for just over a week now.

Honestly, I thought these two were going to need a twelve step program complete with sponsors and mentors and mottos they'd have to repeat daily. Who knew taking out that useless hangy thing in the back of his throat would be all it would take to break them of the habit. Now, if we could just talk about toilet training...