Binky

The only one of my kids to take a binky was Tuba. He loved it! I always swore I'd never let my baby have a pacifier. You know one of those statements you make about raising kids...before you have any kids. Well, Tuba was about 6 weeks old and I was severely sleep deprived. He wanted to nurse every hour...or really just wanted to nurse 24 hours a day. I couldn't take it anymore and at 3:00 am I was digging around trying to find a package of binkies that I'd been given at Tuba's baby shower (I don't remember who it was but thank you to the smart woman who gave them to me). Anyway, I ripped open the package...scrubbed the thing with soap and hot water...because this was my first baby and back then I still sterilized everything....and popped it into his mouth. Ahhhhh....heaven. My poor tired self...and boobies could have a rest. From that moment on he was hooked. We called it "best friend binky". He liked it best in his mouth upside down. We would switch it around and he would change it back. We had hundreds...okay, dozens of binkies. At night I'd put 4 of them in his crib so he could always find one. Even though we had so many it seemed we were always looking for one. You know the kind of frantic search you do on your hands and knees...under the couch, in the cushions, in the car, under the car seats, etc. It was the perfect thing to soothe Tuba and keep him quiet. He loved it until he was 4 and then gave it up over night...all on his own.

So of course when baby number two came along I had plenty of binkies to use. Hmmmm....But, this nice baby wouldn't have anything to do with one. And then came baby number three...didn't want the binky...baby four and five...same thing! No more binky lovers! Shoot!

We of course have lots of binkies around the house. Lots of different kinds, shapes and sizes. They are all just toys to these kids. The Toddlers...no longer can I call them The Babies...now like to suck on one for fun. They play with them in the bathtub and laugh as they steal each other's binky and plop it into their own mouth. The other day they were running around the house sucking on them. Pretty soon the big brothers got in on the action too and I had 4 kids sucking binkies...everyone except Tuba.