Suck on this

We spent last weekend in Las Vegas. The answers to your next three questions are: "Yes, with the kids," "106F," and "Fantastic." Really. I didn't know what to expect, since we'd never done the hotel thing with the kids before, but they took to their beds (and their bedroom companions) like champs. And Mom and Dad took to their own room like champs too, just for the record. The bar downstairs helped with that just a little.

So for whatever positive, vacation-induced reason, I decided that we were ready to give up binkies upon our return. K went right along with it, enthusiastically. We took them over to a new baby friend. Leaving them behind, K's smile waned a little. At bedtime, it had waned a lot. And an hour into bedtime, it had turned from "Baby J can have my binkies" to "Baby J has my binkies!"

And so, on this, Day three, I'm listening to K cry her way through another naptime. I feel this is entirely my fault because (A) I introduced said binkies (although to be fair, the NICU started it) and (B) I took said binkies away. But for heaven's sake, she's well over two and perfectly capable of going to sleep on her own. I see her do it all the time.

But on the flip side, my heart is breaking over more than just her sobs. There's a huge part of me that would like to give them back to her, just to see her sleeping peacefully, sucking happily, like a baby. I know she's not a baby. I know this is worse because she's so grown up and used to them and defiant right now. But the binky brings back baby for me. The thought that in a few more days, I will be throwing all binkies in the trash FOREVER makes me want to hold on to her babyhood for as long as possible.

So this is one of those times when being the grown-up sucks. Not only do I have to make the right decisions and stick with them, but I have to do so even when they're not the decision that I want to make. I really never appreciated the time in my life when I could make MY decisions all the time.

Speaking of growing up, we gave M a clock. Now I get an update on the time every 2-3 minutes. So now I know that I have only been tolerating this for 52 minutes, and that I have 20 more updates before naptime is through. It's a good thing that vacation really was fantastic.