Help. It's only 11 am. It's my "day off". Which only means nobody is paying me for the work I'm doing today. It's gray and drizzly and cold. I should be grateful. Babe woke up at 8:15, but she didn't really start insisting I rescue her from her room until 8:45. So I got enough sleep, even counting the middle of the night "bink recon mission". You know, where she's sitting up in bed with her eyes still mostly shut half sobbing, half chanting... "Momma... BINKA...binka...binka...bink....MOMMA!" So I fumble 'round for my glasses, and stagger in, trying to hop over the stupid baby gate that keeps her from making an escape. (The sound of my ankle cracking into the gate is what rouses daddy, but by then I'm already in, so he rolls over) I used to try to let her CIO, but I discovered that if we ever got to the point where those baby-blues popped open, we were gonna be dealing with full-on middle of the night trauma. If I could attach the stupid bink to her clothes/bed without worrying that she'd be strangled in the middle of the night, this would be SO much easier. Those binks attached to blankies look brilliant, but we lose her big silk blankies all the time, so I really don't wanna have to invest in a bunch of those when theoretically we'll be weaning her off the bink any time now.
By any time now, I mean before she's 5. We tried twice before, but it was SO traumatic (probably mostly for me), and there's always some illness or LOONG car ride that crops up. And my therapist when I was sobbing to her once about how HARD it is to watch her suffer asked me point blank "What harm do you think you're doing her by denying her a self-soothing mechanism you've trained her to use vs. allowing her to continue?" And I had to be honest. It's those daggers I get from great grandma and other parents that make me want to wean her off her binka-binka-doo (well that and my self-righteous decision before she was born that no child of MINE would EVER have an artificial nipple placed in their little mouths). Because I've done the research - I talked to our pediatrician, and her dentist. And they say that as long as it's gone before the permanent teeth come in, and it's not impairing her speech development (HAHAHAHA) there's no harm in it.
Anyway, there was no way she would've found the bink herself - she'd gotten it wedged down between the crib & the wall. Took me a bit to find it. (THIS is what happens when the spare binks get left in the car, isn't it?)
So right now... despite getting enough sleep... I'm so tired and foggy. BC (before child) I would've taken the opportunity to curl up w/ a book, a cuppa cocoa and snooze/read my way through the day. Miss it... oh I so miss my carefree single days.
Well, except for the part where I would cry myself to sleep multiple times a week because I felt so unfulfilled and lonely. That kinda sucked. I just KNEW there were some very important people missing from my life. So I guess... If I could do it all over again. If my saggy baggy not so perky self could go back to my younger single self and tell her what it would be like (tired for the rest of your life, inviting a mini tyrant into your homes, fights over who's doing the most chores around the house, but not EVER lonely, and sometimes so very sparkly wonderful) she'd probably ask if she could start right away.
Right. So... time to shower and buck up, and enjoy the life I chose and would choose again, and again. Wish us luck.
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