Letting Go

When we were in Georgia, Sloan’s giraffe binkie broke into two pieces.  Giraffe and binkie.  She had thrown it at me from the backseat of the car and it just fell apart.  I had been telling her and showing her for days that the giraffe was hanging halfway off…it was holding on by just a few threads…and I explained that pretty soon it might break, and oh god, then it happened.

I also noticed that the old pacifier had a couple of cracks in the plastic; she has been sort of rough on it and gnawing a lot lately since her two-year molars are about to come in.  I told Brad nervously that I thought it might fall apart soon as well.  And that, to me, was just a shitball of fun that I didn’t want to dig my spoon into.

Anyhow, in Georgia I quickly came up with an ingenious plan on how to fix the now-broken-favorite-thing-in-the-whole-wide-world.  I took two safety pins and just pinned the binkie back on to the stuffed animal.  And then I smiled big and handed it back to her.  Sloan didn’t seem to mind.  Perfect.

Then we get home to Utah and she goes to her grandma’s house for a sleepover, and what happens?  The binkie started to crumble.  She was chewing it into pieces and spitting it out and it just became a pile of green rubber bits.  Her grandma tried to pin a new pacifier, exactly the same kind, onto the stuffed giraffe.  Sloan wouldn’t have anything to do with that new binkie.  She would put it in her mouth, try to suck, and then pull it out while making a horrible face and shaking her head and say “blechhh”.  Kind of like, come on people, I’m not THAT stupid.

At that moment, we became royally screwed.

So for the past two days, Sloan has had to deal with the sadness and frustration that her binkie just isn’t the same anymore.  It doesn’t feel good, and it doesn’t feel right.  She throws it out of her crib in frustration.  Then she cries herself to sleep.  I want to weep for her.

I think the reason why we want to cry with our children whenever they are hurt or frustrated is the fact that we know how it feels.  Which makes you sort of wish for them that they don’t have to go through the pain.  I can think of many things in life that start to split at the seams, fall apart, and then the inevitible comes – it breaks and you let go.  It isn’t always easy.  Sometimes it makes you very sad.

Many people might read this post and think that it could be viewed as lucky timing, because Sloan is so close to being two and it’s about time to give the pacifier up.  They might think the way it is happening now is a little more natural – the trajectory of the life of a silicone nipple being coupled with the stubborness of my daughter.  To this, I say “blechhh” and make a horrible face.  Because she is having to learn the lesson that only time heals painful changes.

And that pretty much sucks.