I want her to be able to talk clearly, I want her to comfort herself with her own good brain, I want her teeth to be straight.
What I don't care about is when nosy people look at us with squiggly eyes when we're out and about and she is slurping away on it. I actually don't care about that. If the only factor were public scorn, I would let her take it to college. I'd even buy her a new (sparkly!) one for the occasion. She's small for her age. She might be able to pull of a binky at age 17. But for some reason, as she approaches the age of 4, I feel some kind of natural reasoning yanking apart my steadfast denial, so that I have to address the fact: she is too old for a binky.
Last week, this was the bribe:
"You can't take your binky to princess camp."
This week, I'm trying rabbit, rats, and guinea pigs. We went to Animal Jungle, the best pet store on earth. She petted a rabbit, she held a guinea pig, she ogled a rat, and at the end of the experience, she was claiming boldly that she wanted to get rid of her binkies so she could have a rabbit.
"Sadie, if you can do without your binky for seven days, Mommy will bring you back to Animal Jungle and you can pick out whichever rabbit you want."
Deal. Sealed in cedar shavings.
However, after lunch, there was a reversal.
"Mommy, I weed my binky!"
"Sadie, don't you want to give your binkies to the Binky Fairy so she can bring you a rabbit?"
"No, I don't WANT a wabbit, I weed my BINKY!"
What could I do? I gave her the binky. The sparkly pink binky. Now what can I try next?
Oh, how tough for the little girl. I only had one binky boy, and he used two. One to hold and one to suck, be we took it away early at around one, and he didn't really miss it.
ReplyDeleteThe harder habits to break were my thumb and finger suckers, but the strange thing was they BOTH cut gashes in their tongues and couldn't such their fingers. That cured them of the habit, but started my daughters sleeping issues.
That's for commenting on my blog!! Don't forget I'm giving away books all week!
If only they made sparkly rhinestone thumbs, maybe she'd switch over. But I suppose that would present its whole own set of problems, right? The grass is always greener on the other side of the obsessive behavior. :) :)
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the blog.
I so hear ya! My crazy "paci" queen is 5 1/2! The horror! She did go to pre-k all day without it and did fine. I did not press her more to give it up b/c we has alot of family upheaval in the last year. Her dentist is not the least bit worried at this point (even!, and as a former thumbsucker myself, I think a paci will be easier to get rid of...hard to cut off the thumb and throw it out.
ReplyDeleteBesides, what's a little oral fixation...please pass the diet coke.