Tie me to a balloon....

While pregnant with Baby B, I had all l kinds of notions of the kind of mother I wanted to be. I knew that I wasn't the cloth-diapering kind of momma (those women are quite dedicated to the craft and unsurprisingly this Diva hates laundry). I wanted to try my hand at making my own baby food, but wasn't so die-hard that I wouldn't breakout a jar of Gerber's baby food when ease dictated. I didn't mind if Baby B watched educational TV, but I wanted to more importantly instill a love of reading early on. I wanted to teach him baby sign language, and I'd speak to him in French (I am hardly fluent, but can break out a few key phrases and common words) with the idea of having a little bi-lingual Baby Einstein on my hands. As many ideas of what I wanted to do with Baby B, I had just as many things I vowed I would never do or allow: PACIFIERS being one of them. Ha!!! This was a pipe-dream of a new mother that in retrospect is quite comical knowing now that prying a pacifier from Baby B is like tugging a freshly caught zebra's leg from the mouth of a lion...it ain't pretty!!! Previous to coming home from the hospital I did not buy one single pacifier and NEVER planned to introduce him to one. Guess I should have communicated that to the nurses in the nursery more effectively. Obviously, after his circumcision Baby B was given infant Tylenol, and a pacifier was popped in his precious little mouth to make the meds go down more gently. Well, when they wheeled my day old baby into my room, freshly swaddled and happily sucking on a big, bright orange pacifier I almost freaked out!!! Oh, but he seemed so content that I dare not rip his new "soothie" out of his mouth considering he had just been through what most guy's would consider an invasive and surely uncomfortable procedure even for a newborn. Well, for Baby B it was love at first suck, and for this new momma it was just easier to let him have his Paci than hear his pitiful little cries. So here we are almost 9 months later and still attached to the pacifier like a conjoined twin. Luckily, now that he is talking more and constantly moving, he sometimes forgets about Paci and it's only when he slows down for a minute that he realizes his best buddy is missing. He immediately goes into wail-mode until Paci is safely popped back into place. He MUST sleep with his pacifier, or he simply will NOT sleep. I definitely want to have Paci gone by his 1st birthday. I have read countless online advice columns and magazine articles and sought the advice of other moms who have successfully rid their own baby of the "habit"....one of the more creative ideas was to tie his favorite pacifier to a balloon and have a goodbye launch-off ceremony. How in the world is a baby going to even begin to understand that concept?!? Besides Baby B would just find one of the billion other pacifiers I have stashed around the house and pop that puppy right back in his mouth. I am forever finding one of his pacifiers crammed down in the couch cushions or hiding out in the most random places. Luckily, Baby B is not attached to any one particular pacifier, so each is expendable. However, he is a brand snob and will turn his nose up at anything but a MAM pacifier. Luckily, we currently have 6 of these in rotation, and a stash of new MAMs ready to be called into action at a moments notice. I have one pacifier tucked in the glove box, two back-ups in the diaper bag, one beside the bed, one near the diaper changing station and more times than not one forgotten MAM pushed down into the cup of my bra. You can't say I'm not prepared!!! We were once at Target when Baby B launched his Paci onto the germy floor, since Daddy was the official buggy pusher and baby sitter, I was unaware of this critical situation until I was standing in the check-out line and felt a hand reach over my shoulder and paw at my brassiere. I must have jumped a mile into the air until I realized the hand belonged to my hubby, and he ever so calmly informed me that he was just looking for an extra pacifier. The look on the poor teenage cashier's face was priceless, and the chuckles of the people waiting in line behind me was enough to get the Bubba a very stern talking to from this extremely embarrassed momma on the car ride home.
So I finally come to my point, being a mother isn't always easy and sometimes we sacrifice on ideas we once held so firm. We bend our own rules for the sake of convenience, ease or just to avoid public meltdowns. The most important lesson that 8 months of motherhood has taught me is to just roll with the punches. I'm not saying to give into every whim and demand of your little one, but pick your battles. As long as Baby B is happy, healthy and growing into one smart, loving little fellow then I know I'm doing a good job....pacifier or not:)