The binkie addiction is a frightening thing. It starts innocently enough–one for naptime, maybe the occasional car ride–and yet it grows with an irrepressible intensity that is almost beyond comprehension. One night you’re tucking the little silicon nub between your slumbering baby’s lips, blessing it for providing your child (ahem, you) such sweet nighttime solace…and the next you’re frantically tearing up the house, digging through coat pockets and upturning couch cushions in search of the blasted things, while a teary two year-old beckons from her crib, mooooooooore biiiiiinkiiiiiiies!

I feared it would never end.

An intervention was called for.

A good sign that things were reaching critical mass

On Tuesday, inspired by the BFF who told her toddler son that it was time to “give his binkies to the babies,” I made my move.

(Actually, her story is even better than that: Just before they all moved to Tanzania, she told him that the babies in America needed the pacifiers. It was a great twist on the old “starving children in Africa” schtick.)

Thalia and I had a little chat about how binkies are for babies, not big girls like Thalia. And that maybe it was time to give her binkies to babies who need them more. I expected a good fight. But remarkably, she loved the idea.

Thalia’s a giver.

And so we ran around the house, gathering all the Nams and Nuks and Avents we could find, and dropping them into an aqua Bliss bag. The irony was not lost on me. Then we said goodbye to the binkies and thanked them for serving us well, then had some ice cream to celebrate.

She hasn’t looked back since. And in fact, she tells everyone she meets how she gave her binkies to the babies. Also, how the 4 and 5 trains were not working but now they’re working again. But that’s another story.

Yesterday I rushed home late to relieve the sitter and discovered our dog, in a fit of excitement, had tried to dance with Thalia, ballroom-style, leaving two crimson clawmarks down her right cheek from her eye to below her lip. (She was fine, but of course all I could think of was this. Good God.)

While she cried, she never once asked for a binkie.

She did ask for ice cream. I can live with that.

One down, one to go