Monday, February 25, 2008

The Case of the Missing Taggie

Well, after a not-so-exciting weekend of rain, constant begging to go to the rainy park, and a lot of mommy ignoring her kids while face-in-book, we had a little bit of excitement this afternoon.

My husband takes great pride in the fact that our children never used pacifiers (especially now that we're in Portugal where all babies have pacifiers and it's very common to see four-year- olds with bottles in their hands and pacifiers in their mouths and six-year-olds being spoon fed dinner by a parent). He felt (more so than me) that our girls were such easy babies, that it would be pure laziness on our part to use them. They were very easily comforted (true). There were times I felt that way, but, there were also times I would have appreciated a "plug" other than my boob.

What my girls do have, instead, are Taggies (see above picture). They don't sleep or travel without them. When Olivia was 10-months-old, we lost her first one on a plane. I quickly bought a new one and she's had it ever since. When I was pregnant with Lila, I bought two and had her name embroidered on them. If she ever loses one, she has a "backup."

Taggies are "sensitive" items and Matt and I have been teaching her to always take accountability of said "sensitive" item. She's older now, after-all. We've been encouraging her to leave Taggie in the car or at home.

Today, she was in a mood. Matt's away and I'm at the point now where instead of an annoying song sticking in my head, I hear crying. I wake up in the middle of the night often thinking I heard crying. Crying, crying, crying. I've been on mommy duty, without a break, for over a week. I know it could be so much worse; I've been through worse. But, it is what it is at this point in time. The girls miss Matt and we have a week to go. I'm fine, they are not. And, so it goes. Olivia does not want to be without Taggie. So, I let her take it to our Monday morning playgroup. During which, was packed away in the boxes during clean-up.

We had a good lunch, both girls were exhausted and we headed home. I got Lila up to bed, grabbed Olivia and asked her where her Taggie was. "I don't know. Where is it, mommy?"

I began to feel very ill. I'm not ready to wean her from Taggie. Especially when she's missing Matt. I jump into "mom on a mission" mode, and a million phone calls later, shortened naps and a trip back to NATO, we find it. She hugged it tight, bunched it up, sniffed it and, after a bit, says, "Mommy, I love my Taggie!"

The End

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is too funny. My kiddos never had a pacifier either. They had my boobs...UUGUGUGUGU. Nora and Benny both breast fed until they were 22 months. I wonder, will Ella go that long?!?!?

The Dunns said...

Talk about a mommy nightmare! My boys all have blankets (they call them "kiki") and we have had many scares. I have never been able to find a duplicate for Daniel's, just in case... But I just got a double for Mikey and Ezra, so I think we are set for them. Daniel is old enough that Kiki stays at home and he is fine with it.

Good luck single-parenting!

Angie said...

I wanted my kids to take a pacifier. I swore that my second child WOULD take a pacifier. But, it's not looking like it. I don't know what I am doing wrong. The problem is that I feel like a human pacifier.

I tried to get Ashlyn attached to her taggie, too. I thought she would love it, since she loved tags on everything else. Instead, she ended up attached to an old bed sheet. It would have been much better to have carried around a taggie than a giant sheet. Apparently, I suck at choosing what will comfort my children.

The thing that I was glad Ashlyn didn't do was thumb sucking. I've had 11 year old students who still had such a bad habit of sucking their thumbs that they were doing it in class without realizing it. You can take the pacifier away, not their thumbs.

Unknown said...

Behind Matt's back, I tried several different kinds of pacificers with both girls. The both gagged and puked. They hated them. But, I did try. I wasn't too worried about a pacificer addiction. I just wanted to use it for six months until their need to suck desire starts to diminish (so experts say). But, I too had no success. Matt would have been furious anyway. He has memories of his sister using the same pacificer until she was four and he was grossed out by it. All pacificers now gross him out b/c of that. Weird.

Unknown said...

Brenda, Lila is just about 16-months and still nursing strong. I spoke to her doctor about weaning her and described to him her anxiety attacks (I'm not kidding; she's the sensitive one) when I pull her off too early or tell her "no" when she wants to nurse and I'm too busy. Portuguese women do NOT nurse for more than four months (and that's a stretch for most). So, you can imagine my shock when he told me that, in her case, I should just give it to when she wants until she's two. He said there was no sense in upsetting her b/c she is so sensitive. Especially with Matt away a lot. I guess he had a point. I'm happy to continue to nurse her. It's not like I have a trip planned away from the girls any time soon. You just don't hear Dr's enouraging you to nurse much past a year too often.