Mean Mom

Do you ever feel like a mean parent? About a month ago I decided that Eli was getting too attached to his pacifier, that it was time to get rid of it. So, like I did with Ali and Logan, I cut the sucker off of the pacifier and gave it to him, telling him that it was broken. When I did it with Ali, she didn't seem to care at all. Logan seemed confused and slept with the "broken" pacifier in his hand for about a week before he decided it wasn't worth keeping anymore. Eli looked at me and laughed, as though he was saying, "Funny joke, Mom!" But when I put him in bed with it and started leaving the room, he got a really mad look on his face and started to cry. It was like he knew I was the one that broke it, something the other two didn't seem to guess.

Really, he did very well without the pacifier, only crying for a few seconds when we put him to bed, not waking up any earlier or during the night. But he missed it. If we said the word "pacifier" he would look around hopefully and then we could see his face fall when it wasn't there. He would see the broken one, run to it excitedly, and then literally slump in disappointment when he remembered it was broken. I felt mean. I'm glad he seems to have forgotten about it now.