There's a sucker born every minute.

Dear Z,

At your first year appointment, our pediatrician looked us right in the eye and said: “Those pacifiers should be gone by 18 months. The sooner the better. It’ll start to warp her developing teeth.”

Ah, a new thing to worry about! Perfect. Because, you know, it’s been almost 4 whole seconds since I last worried about something relating to you.

As an infant, you wanted to pacify yourself on my body. So to relieve the agony of my poor udders, and to keep you from nursing till you were so full you’d invariably spit up half of it, we gave you a pacifier. And the rest is orthodontic history.

You use your pacifiers to sleep. If you ever need tending to in the middle of the night it’s usually because your pacifier has fallen out of the crib and you can’t get it. You like to have them while you are in the car or stroller and after a meal (does this sound like a cigarette addiction or what?). You like to have them for a while after waking up and when you have just fallen, gotten a shot at the doctor’s office, entered a crowded public place or just been stricken with inexplicable pissiness. Add those all up and it’s pretty much all the time.

I was hoping that in giving you the pacifier, we would be in control and we could take away those suckers any time we wanted to. You wouldn’t suck your thumb endlessly like I did. Oh no, missy. No having braces TWICE for you, my dear. No “rapid palate expansion appliance” for your mother to twist with a little satanic key every night. No speech therapy to correct a thumb-sucking-induced lisp. No sucking your thumb raw until it moves right past looking like a wrinkled raisin to become a frighteningly smooth, fingerprintless orb (think of all the crimes my thumb could have gotten away with when I was 12!). No social anxiety at sleep overs, hiding under the sleeping bag while you furtively comfort yourself to sleep; preferring sweating to death from the down insulation to risking the exposure of your secret love affair with your own thumb or worse, suffering a sleepless night with no oral fixation crutch.

Ahem.

Anyway, your dad and I immediately decided that we would Crack Down. No more pacis except for naptime and bedtime for the next six months then none at all, ever. That lasted about ten whole hours. You know where the pacis dry after washing and you spent the better part of the next day pointing up to the drying rack and crying sad, bitter tears. I felt your pain. Seriously. I sucked my thumb for long enough (Was I 13 when I finally stopped? 14??) to have many, many memories of the comfort it provided.

So I gave it to you then and randomly, but frighteningly often, since. Your dad is not pleased with this turn of events and I can only say in my defense: “Dude, if you want to be the one to hang with Zoe while she goes through some nasty withdrawal BE MY GUEST.”

I am ambivalent about the fact that we, as your parents, have the choice of whether or not you comfort yourself with sucking. In some ways it would be easier if you sucked your thumb. Then I could look at you and shrug and say “Well, it’s a part of her. What can I do?”. Instead, I fear we will be the mom and 3 year old at the grocery store that everyone stares at and thinks “Jeez, lady. Don’t you know she should have given that up by now? Just take it away, already.”

Someday we’ll be taking them away. I don’t know just how or when but when we do, rest assured that I understand your loss. And, as always, we’re doing what we hope is best for you.