Sunday mornings are a big deal in our house. Annie will spend about an hour searching the house for her princess dresses, which I hide every other Sunday. I don't do it to be mean, but I can only handle so much torn lace and polyester satin. Not to mention I let her wear them all week long. This morning was princess dress morning. I got up early to find them all, but it seems I have hidden them a little to well, and I can't find them. Annie, thankfully, is not aware this week is princess week yet, but I guarantee she will remember the second we pull up at church. Moving on, Annie decides to wear the dress she slept in last night. I'm confused, almost shocked. It does not have a princess on it, or lace, or frayed polyester satin. I ask her what she likes about her dress, "it match my binky mama." Wow, she was right, but does she now think binky is an appropriate accessory to wear out with her dress?
I've been struggling with Annie and this binky for a while now. She is definitely a binky addict, but I am not skilled in the ways of addiction and how to break them, especially in little girls. Do I take it away and go "cold turkey" as they say, or slowly decrease the time allowed. I have tried both ways. When I slowly decrease the time allowed with binky, she somehow always manages to slowly increase the time allowed, and we end up back at square one. I'm not ashamed to admit she can outsmart me. When I remove binky completely, we actually do great for about two days, and then she screams and her dad gives me grief about taking away her binky, telling me I should slowly decrease the time allowed. That I'm being mean and makes me feel like I'm inflicting actual bodily harm to her. Grrr. My frustration is only magnified when I remember Annie has another parent who does legally have parenting rights, but who is also never around. How is this allowed? Do I really have to consult him about taking a binky away? It doesn't help that when he is here, Annie gets her binky whenever she wants.
So here's what I've decided to do. I am going to pray, a lot. Pray that Annie will outgrow this binky problem and hand it over to God. This might sound silly, but I can't seem to win in this situation. Maybe God will show Don, the long term effects of binky addiction. Perhaps an airplane ride sitting next to a dentist on one of his flights, or constantly running into people with severe overbites. I don't know what, but I'm sure God could think of something.
2 comments:
I've heard about taking them all to the hospital and "giving" them to the babies who need them. My one friends daughter decided that the fish at the aquarium needed them, so she handed them to all the aquarium workers....a little weird but whatever works right?
This suggestion was made to me, so I tried it and it worked. I was told to "accidently" leave it out of town. Amira had already, just naturally, started only really using her binky when she was tired. So on one trip returning from a trip to Tennessee to visit my grandmother she asked for her binky when she was tired and I told her we left it at Momma Dah's house in Tennessee and we couldn't turn around. She took it well and was good from there on out. Of course, I had to run in the house and clear out the "extra" binky's before she remembered they were there.
Good luck.
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