Binky Blues

If I'm being honest, I'm feeling a little down.

This week has been tricky.  Actually, I feel like it's been tricky since before Hannah had croup, but this week especially is trying.  Hannah and Jack have both been super emotional and fussy, and I'm exhausted.  Working all day (especially on days when I'm training all day) and then picking up the kids, and coming home to whining and fussiness from the time we get home until they go to bed is not easy.  It's really, really hard.

Per our pediatrician's suggestion, we're trying to use Hannah's binky less and less.  This is not going smoothly.  Hannah really loves her binky.  

Jack really loved his binky too.  His even had a little stuffed animal we called Milo at the end of it, but then one night, when he was 18 months old, he just decided he didn't want it in his mouth.  He went to bed that night without it, and I cried and cried.  I knew it would have been crazy to give it back to him after that night, so I kept it in my closet to see what would happen the next day.  Would he ask me for it?  Would he cry and want it back the next night?  Not at all.  In fact, he never mentioned it again until many months later, he found it in my closet and asked me about it.  But my mommy-heart?  It was broken.

I seriously think one of the cutest things you'll ever see is a baby with his or her binky.  I don't know - I can't explain it, but it gets me.  

Anyway, Jack loved his binky, but Hannah?  Hannah really loves her binky.  Strangely enough, while we started Jack on a binky right away, we waited eight weeks after Hannah was born before we even attempted to use a binky to avoid "nipple confusion".  I really think it made a difference too since our second attempt at breastfeeding went much more smoothly than the first.  But after that two month mark, Hannah took to the binky like a champ, and they've been best friends ever since.  However, at our 18 month check-up, our doctor suggested that we start to only give Hannah her binky at bedtime and during naps, and perhaps on the way home from daycare since that always seems to be a clingy, tough transition.

It hasn't been going well.  I take that back - at school, they say she is fine without it during the day.  But at home?  Completely different story.  Her back teeth are coming in like crazy, and when we get home, at least lately, Hannah is super clingy and fussy, and she just follows me around and wails.  She says, "Biky, biky," over and over again, just looking for it.  And I cave.  I do - I can't take it.

And then yesterday at school, they seemed to have lost her binky.  We went home without it - she cried.  We got home, and I couldn't find the one she'd had in her crib the night before - she cried.  But then the rest of the evening...she was fine.

She went to bed without it.  Not.  One.  Peep.

And I knew.  

It was over.  We cannot go back.

My mommy-heart is sad because I feel like our baby phase is over.  We are about 99% positive that our family is complete.  Jack and Hannah bring so much joy to our lives, but Brad and I are very aware of our limits, and together we agree that we probably cannot voluntarily handle anymore chaos than we already have in our lives.  We struggle to handle the stress we have today - and we simply cannot imagine going through one more pregnancy or bathing one more child.  How do you successfully put three children to bed on time when you can't get two in bed by 9:30 on nights they take baths and need breathing treatments?

Some people have the answers to these questions.  We are not those people.  And we know it.

And it's sad.

I'm pretty sure that no matter how many babies we had, I would always want one more newborn.  I'd always miss the baby stage.  I'd want a newborn to cuddle up on my chest.  To pick up a baby that still keeps its tiny legs curled up by its belly.   To breathe in that newborn smell.  

To watch a baby sleeping, binky and all.

Thank goodness my sister is due in approximately one month.  

I'm counting on that to give me my little newborn fill:)