Long hair and pacifiers

This is J in the morning. People often ask me about my "daughter"... I think it's funny. Chris and I have no plans on cutting his hair any time soon, so I guess it just goes with the territory. His locks are decently curly in the back, so it doesn’t look too much like a mop. However, it’s the hair directly on top of his head that is just straight, that is always draping into his face.

J man loves his pacifier. Loves it. It is his happiness in a tangible form. I don't really care about this issue, either. I know, I know, major-bad-call-mom. Yawn. I don’t care. Really. When we went to Australia, we made sure to stalk up on the stupid green pacifiers before we left (because of course, those are the only ones he will EVER take. Ever. Any other pacifier is just NOT a pacifier to him---it’s a joke). We were totally prepared. Well, we lost about 4 or 5 before our first stint was even over. I was sure we were going to loose them all…

We did pretty well keeping track of the last two we had. He kept them the whole rest of the month, until the very end…almost. 3 days before we headed on our 15+ hour plane ride home, our sole surviving pacifier was no where to be found. I actually thought, “Hey, this is good! What better way to kick the pacifier habit, then now?” After all, I thought it was disgraceful for any child over 12 months (which is actually pretty old for most people…) to have a stupid chunk of rubber for them to chomp on.

So it was. The pacifiers were gone, and J was going to learn cold turkey. Needless to say, it was not a fun filled 3 nights of sleep. J has always been a great sleeper. You stick a pacifier in his mouth, and he just passes out for hours. It’s fairly routine. However, heaven forbid the day came when there no pacifiers in sight---and of course, he wouldn’t take any other pacifier found on the island (it’s a BIG island) of Australia. Bummer.

The flight home wasn’t all that bad, he eventually passed out from exhaustion. But remember how I had resolved this was it. It had been three days since he had a pacifier, and I thought, “good riddance”. Any normal mother would have taken this chance, and ran with it. Well, all it took was our walk into his room once we got home, where he found his stash of about 7 “suckers” (what they are called at our home); I have NEVER SEEN THE BOY SO HAPPY IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE. I kid you not. It was like a kid in a candy store. His eyes lit up, and he lunged to the stack of green rubber, laughing and smiling. He didn’t know what to do with himself, he was so stinkin’ excited!

He was in love. So, I decided right then and there, “You can have your pacifier for as long as you want!” and that was that. Happy baby, happy mom.

Except he’s not so much a baby anymore---hmmmm. Yes, I am a VERY responsible mother. And J, I hope you figure out how to sleep without a pacifier before you start High School. People just might not understand...