Our daughter will be three in April and she still takes a passifier when she sleeps.
I’ll pause for the Karens to judge.
With our son, removing the passi when he turned one wasn’t a big deal. He didn’t care too much about it.
Our little girl LOVES her passi and always has. She nursed just fine and still loved her bink at night.
Honestly, when she turned one, we were at the height of dealing with things with our son and his #extremebehavior so we just missed it.
It never crossed my mind to take her beloved binkie that early.
At two, we recognized we did maybe need to consider taking it from her for good.
We tried the “passi fairy”, exchanging them for a prize, and even sending them to Santa to fix up for other kids who were still babies.
Nope. Nope. Double nope.
She is on board with complete excitement until bedtime.
Cue the wailing and gnashing of baby teeth.
So what does a near three year old’s passi have to do with #simplifiedliving or #extremeparenting?
Ev.Er.Y.Thing.
Karens, prepare to take notes.
When you raise an #extremechild and every week is filled with #OT appointments, #therapy, #medrefills, #behaviors, #meltdowns, revisiting old #copingstrategies, #nightterrors (I could keep going), you stop being so concerned about things like whether or not people stare at you for handing your screaming toddler a pacifier in Target because you just don’t have the mental space for that anymore.
We no longer waste worry-filled nights on whether our kid skips the number eight when she counts to ten. We laugh. She’s two. She will get it eventually.
And we let ourselves choose joy. That means sometimes I have a Cherry Coke because they are freaking delicious. And sometimes my son jumps out of a tree limb and we laugh as I silently pray, thankful he is in one piece. And our daughter still uses a passi and we ignore the haters because she loves it.
Now, we focus on the smallest of victories and we do our very best to give each other much deserved grace in the difficult moments (which happen most days).
It takes a village and if you are a judgy Karen, my village is full. Bye!
We are all–no matter your child’s quarks or humor or diagnosis or normalcy–just out here doing our best to figure out how to parent. No one actually has it figured out. No one.
So, here’s to laughing at the tough stuff and crying when we need to cry. I mean, surely she won’t take her passi to college, right!?????
#TheMamaOnTheRocks #choosejoy #bekind #dontjudge #dontbeaKaren #NotTodayKaren #passi #binky #pacifier
