Bye Bye Binky
Wednesday, June 7, 2006 at 09:42AM I don’t know exactly when it was that The Toddler’s pediatrician first started to prepare The Parents for pulling the plug. Probably it was around age one that he began to gently nudge them.
By doctor’s orders, the pacifier was to be used only to encourage sleep and to calm “stressful” situations. Of course The Parents’ definition of “stressful” was taken probably a little more liberally than the kind doctor intended and became pretty much any time that The Toddler wasn’t in daycare or putting food into his mouth. 
As The Toddler began to verbalize, his pacifier became known simply as “Paci” and it became inseparably attached to “Burpcloth,” a raggedy-looking cloth diaper, to the extent that they conjoined and became one word, known affectionately in The Family’s house as “Paciburpcloth.”
It was, if memory serves correctly, at eighteen months and at two years, that The Pediatrician, after seeing Paci being used to mollify The Toddler during booster shot visits, admonished The Parents that they were to say bye-bye to binky by age three. The Parents of course properly assured The Pediatrician during each of these visits that they would start to wean The Toddler from Paci, because that’s what good parents do – they tell the doctor what he wants to hear.
What parents tell a pediatrician and what they do are rarely one and the same. And such was the case with these parents. Although they had the best intentions, it seemed that there was always some reason to delay pulling the plug. There would be vows to cut The Toddler off right after this trip or that trip which were neglected upon returning from this trip or that trip.
Time seems to accelerate when you don’t do something that you know that you’re supposed to do by that time. The Parents swore that The Toddler’s second birthday was just yesterday when all of a sudden the third anniversary of his birth is kicking them in the shins.
And then one day it’s the day before that third birthday and The Parents are breaking the news to The Toddler that on the day he will be showered with gifts and be permitted to eat all the sweets he can stomach, there will be a bittersweet ending because he will have to say good-bye to his dear friend Paci.
The Toddler has all day to digest this crushing news and later that evening, as he prepares for bed and his last night with Paci, he utters out of the side of his pacified mouth something that The Parents never thought they would hear: “I don’t want a birthday.” The meaning of course being that he was willing to give up everything – the presents, the cake, the candy, the ice cream – for Paci.
For much of the next day Paci was forgotten amidst all the joy and celebration that was The Toddler’s birthday. But after the house emptied and all the presents had been opened, The Toddler, nap-less and over-stimulated, had a predictable meltdown to end all meltdowns. If ever there was a time when Paci was needed, this was it. But The Parents held firm, putting up with two hours of whining and crying and kicking and screaming until Mommy negotiated a deal that she will forever live to regret. There would be no Paci but there would be cake and milk, which The Toddler took to like a tiger to raw meat.
Now a chocolate mess, Mommy swept The Toddler from the table and into the bathroom for a wipe down. That’s when Daddy heard from outside the bathroom that unmistakable sound – a burp but not an ordinary one. The bathroom, The Toddler and Mommy – all coated with fresh undigested chocolate cake and milk. The icing on the cake to what had become a bittersweet third birthday.
After his second bath of the evening and a lot of extra comforting, The Toddler finally conked out. And for the first time in his three years, he didn't need Paci.
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