The Binky Fairy

I’ll always remember that night. It was 11:30 at night and the cries and screams that where emanating from my daughters’ room where so loud and gruesome that I was certain the Department of Children and Families was going to be coming to our door the next morning. Geoff and I sat there in the dark on the floor, closing our eyes and hoping it would all just end. We were both near tears from exhaustion. Without him having to say a word I said, “ I know. We should have taken them away before their first birthday. We’re horrible parents. “ It was the girls’ first night after the “Binky Fairy” made her appearance at our house leaving behind some wooden blocks and a Dr. Seuss book and taking with her my daughters’ beloved binkies and apparently the hope of ever having a peaceful nights’ sleep EVER AGAIN. That night we wound up taking the girls on a midnight car trip hoping they would dose off and somehow forget about their rubber companions for that night. It worked…. eventually. It took about a week for our daughters to mourn the loss of their beloved “tetes”. Every now and then, someone (usually Chloe) will still ask for it, only I pretend that they are asking me for something else. “Mami, TETEEEEE!!!” Chloe will yell. I’ll respond with “What’s that, Chloe, you want your vitamin?” She’s so excited that her Flinestones chewable is on its way that she forgets to give me a hard time for the obvious defiance to her very specific demand. This experience makes a very important point for soon-to-be or new parents. No matter how “holier than thou” you may be as you read your parenting books and as you listen to your parenting podcasts while your child in utero- it’s a whole different ball game once the little guy or gal is out in the real world. My husband and I originally didn’t want to use pacifiers at all, but upon researching that it was good for the prevention of SIDS, we quickly went out and bought them in every shade and color so that they at least matched their adorable outfits. It was meant to be a temporary solution to my fears of them having been born premature, and slowly became a simple matter of survival. I’m certainly not a fan of the archaic notion that children are to be “seen and not heard”, but every now and then those binkies would give me something I had been dreaming of since the birth of my children- SILENCE. JUST A MINUTE OF SILENCE. So when it became embarrassing to take the girls out after their 2nd birthday with the binkies in tow, we knew that it was time to face the piper and say goodbye to what had become to us members of our family. We brought them with us everywhere we went- from the grocery store to family vacations. They were there in times of laughter (like the first time the girls saw a monkey at the zoo) and times of sorrow (like every time we went to the doctor for vaccinations). We looked for them in desperation when they would go missing and rejoiced and thanked the Lord Almighty then they would reappear behind the crib or inside of a pair of shoes we hadn’t worn in a while. But sometimes you just know that it’s time to let go and you realize that these items that cost you roughly $5.00 will cost you thousands in orthodontic devices and appointments no matter how “teeth friendly” they promise to be on the package. But most importantly, the strong female that roars inside of me didn’t want my daughters to feel that their fears and anxieties would be taken away by anything other than toughing it out and praying through it. After all, isn’t it people with dependency issues that wind up on t.v. with Dr. Drew? (And I mean both Teen Mom and Celebrity Rehab, by the way.) I know I may be thinking too far ahead and definitely too dramatically, but these are the things that ran through my mind that horrible night as I sat in that dark room in the fetal position. I’m proud to say that the girls are now 31 days “binky sober”. I have to admit that I’m prouder of myself than of them sometimes because every parent out there knows that it’s very easy to give in to your kids every whim if you’re not careful. But a good parent (or at least one that’s under construction) will suck it up, look their child in the eyes and firmly say to them, “Sorry darling, that mean Binky Fairy stole your binkies!”