I’m a horrible mother.
I super duper mean it this time.
Lemme ‘splain: Jasper needed to kick his pacifier habit. (No, that’s not the reason I’m a horrid parent- will you hang on a second, judgy?) He’s two and a half, already operates at a slight deficit in the whole speechly department, and I think we can all agree that a partially ripped, grubby pink pacifier doesn’t exactly scream “Christmas card photo,” right?
It was time to kick the paci.
I knew it. Jasper “knew” it too, insomuch as he would nod pleasantly when we’d utter phrases like “the Tooth Fairy will bring you a big boy present” and “it’s SO nice to hear your awesome words without the paci” and “when this paci breaks that’s the last one” and “therapy isn’t that expensive.” Stuff like that. But knowing and knowing are two entirely different things, especially when samesuch grubby pink paci is hanging by a grubby pink thread mere moments before bedtime.
P.J. told me to make a move towards taking away that paci. I told P.J. to make a move towards taking away that paci. Because we didn’t want the kid to choke in his sleep, did we? We didn’t want him to take a ripped pacifier to college, did we? So we agreed. And we jointly told Jasper to rip the pacifier apart because we are wussy wussbags from Wusstown Proper.
“Who would DO that?”
Jasper, thinking the game was a hilarious and completely unexpected pre-bedtime game, bit on his paci. He laughed. He bit harder on his paci. Oh, the laughter. He bit all the way through the paci.
And he crumbled.
“Mama fix it,” he quietly sobbed as he held it out to me in a “here, will you help this baby bird” kinda motion that pretty much made me question every life choice that let up to this exact moment.
“WE ARE SO PROUD OF OUR BIG BOY AND HIS NO PACIFIER THING” we gently shrieked to our youngest child. “OKAY, TIME FOR BED!”
Jasper shuddered once and then went to brush his teeth.
“THIS IS GOING SO WELL,” P.J. and I calmly congratulated ourselves.
And then Jasper saw his bed. “I have paci?”
We explained that there was no more paci because Jasper was a big boy and wow, the Tooth Fairy would sure be bringing him something awesome in exchange! And then the tears came. And then the tears came.
I contemplated walking to Costco and buying a flat of new pink pacifiers. I didn’t, because that would be crazy, right? (Right?)
And then P.J. pointedly told me that perhaps doing this at bedtime wasn’t such a great idea and then I almost threw a couch at him.
We asked Jasper what he thought the Tooth Fairy would bring.
“A Daniel Tiger,” he sobbed.
“A what?”
“A soft one.”
I informed P.J. that the Tooth Fairy needed to check out the availabilities of stuffed Daniel Tigers at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday night in the city boundaries while I convinced the tiny man child seizing around the room that it was okay to trust and love again.
I laid him in his crib and tucked him in with his- oh, let’s be honest- eleventy million other favorite stuffed pals and blankies. It was hard, what with the detox-like shaking and the Rain Man-esque requests for a paci- any paci- or maybe a stuffed Daniel Tiger, NO A PACI.
I could handle that part.
I couldn’t handle when the freak outs turned quiet and inward and morphed into whispered requests for “Mommy fix it” into his sheet. Give me wall-to-wall tantrums any day over softly uttered evidence of broken spirits. (The kind that go on until 10:30 that same night.)
I left Sad Sack Sam with his father, Hindsight Henry, and started to drive. Target? Toys R Us? Where was the Daniel Tiger party at, friends? Turns out, the party had ended for smallish plush Daniel Tigers at both of those venues, but both locales were raging into the night for the extremely large, extremely loud, talking Daniel Tigers- who uttered no fewer than 14 phrases– at the totally Tooth Fairy-friendly price of twenty bucks. Don’t think I didn’t make this harder than it needed to be, either, oh no. I for sure called different Targets and Toys R Us’s while standing in completely separate Targets and Toys R Us’s, even going so far as to text various pictures of various, overpriced Daniels to my borderline unsympathetic husband.
P.J. text: Maybe you’re overthinking this.
Keely text: I don’t deserve to have children.
(For the record, a paci costs maybe two bucks.)
(I’m just saying.)
And I’m not gonna lie- Jasper freaked out with [reserved] joy at the sight of a newly arrived (and oh my God so loud) Daniel Tiger the next morning.
And I’m not gonna lie- it hasn’t been the end of the world for my pre-preschooler, nor has the onslaught of piecemeal sentences in the past two days been anything short of pleasant- if slightly confusing.
And I’m so not gonna lie- when he randomly asks me for a paci, as if trying to trick me, I’m still superbly tempted to give in and keep this burgeoning man person tiny and babylike and entirely dependent on me (or at least things I can give and see and secure) for his comfort, forever.
I won’t, though. Because that’s not the point of this whole, weird, irrationally emotional parenting thing, right? (Right?)
But you can bet your last Tooth Fairy dollar that I’ll be keeping the two broken pieces of that stupid pacifier in my embarrassing box of purported talismans for the rest of my highly emotional life, during which time I’ll hopefully (hopefully) come to grips with my one job of guiding three short people towards existing in the world without the reliance on others (or things) for self-comfort. Not even me.
I said hopefully.
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
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