Pacifier Wars

We're having the pacifier wars here in the Lunasea household. It's Ben's mouth vs. Ben's hands. He's always been a super-sucker* and really, really likes his pacifier. However, he also has just enough coordination to pull his pacifier out of his mouth. What he hasn't gotten yet is the concept of cause and effect, or the skill of putting the pacifier back in his mouth. He gets really mad when the pacifier leaves his mouth and yells at me, his eyes saying, "Woman, why must you ruin my life so?"

I've told him, in my best wise voice, "If you want pacifier in mouth, it is most wise to not pull it out of mouth."

I replace the thing maybe 200 times a day. I tried putting spare pacifiers and various objects in his hands so they would be full, but he's able to loosen a finger, insert it into the pacifier handle, and pull. So then he's holding 2 pacifiers. Then he realizes that the pacifiers are close to his mouth but not inside, and does all kinds of head and neck contortions to get one of them back in. So far, he has been unsuccessful.

I've also tried taking the pacifier away and making him do with his fingers. Doesn't work - he knows the difference and is quite unsatisfied. When we're trying to go to sleep at night, I've tried putting him in a sort of headlock with my hand and wrist snugly over his chest and shoulder so he can't reach his mouth. Some people read Goodnight Moon as their bedtime ritual, we have a mother-son wrestling match.

I've tried nursing instead. He does the same thing by pushing my boob out of his mouth. I have one arm underneath his head, and my other arm alternates between keeping his legs on my lap (he likes to hurl himself off my lap in another fantastically self-sabotaging move), holding the enormous boob up (here come a bunch more Google hits), and holding his hands still so he doesn't push the boob out. I'm an avid breastfeeding advocate, but it's not exactly a relaxing, tranquil bonding experience with this little guy. It's more like lunch at a really chaotic cafeteria in a foreign country. Works for sustenance, but it's not exactly comforting.

G. points out that is a perfect metaphor for life - how many times do we blame our misfortunes on outside forces, when really we're the ones taking the pacifier out of our own mouths? Ah, more Life Lessons from Our Children. How touching.


*He can give me a good hickey in less than 3 seconds if he sucks on my arm. My rather limited experience tells me that's not normal even for a fully grown male.