weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth

Elise was our first baby to take a pacifier.  It was a beautiful and lovely thing.  I think I would have had much better mental health as a new mother with Stuart, had he cooperated with a pacifier.  Grace wouldn’t take one, but she would suck on my  finger.  Weird, I know.  But when you have reflux babies, you’ll pretty much do anything to get them to stop crying.  About six months ago, when Elise was getting closer to her 2nd birthday, we thought it might be time to get rid of her binki.  But she was always sick, so it seemed a little cruel.  So instead, we only let her have it during naps and at bedtime.  Then she turned 2 shortly after her pneumonia/surgery/hospital episode and again, we had many reasons why it wasn’t a good time to take it away.  She went through several more rounds of sinus/ear infections and now we’ve had about 2 weeks of her off antibiotics and without any sickness (that we know of…more on that later).  So on Thursday last week, I put her to bed with no bink.  There was much screaming.  For about 4 days now, there has been a lot of crying and to top it off, she’ll get really worked up and yell, nooooooooo, mommy, noooooooooooooooo!  I know these things take time, but I was kind of counting on a short transition.   I probably would not have minded her having it for a little while longer, but when she wakes up from her naps and in the morning, we put it up on a high shelf, and then lately, as we go about the business of the day, she would make her way back up there and get it down and walk around sucking on it--while she is talking, eating, etc.  So we pulled the plug.  I’m hoping this only lasts a few more days.  We still have to get through the transition from crib to bed.  One of my least favorite childhood milestones.