It’s tough to be small. You’ve got no control over anything. Your parents start you on these little addictions and then stop you and you can’t do anything about it.
Pacifiers. Again.
We’re doing pretty good with those. They don’t use them at all at daycare. It’s home that’s the problem. By the time they get home, they’re tired and cranky and we’re tired and cranky and it gets easier and easier to push the problem off to deal with it another day. However, the Mom-imposed deadline of getting them off those danged things is only just over 3 months away. Seems like a lot of time, but it goes pretty quickly.
They can have them in the car. They can have them at bedtime. We cave and give them the binkies after supper. If we go outside, they have to surrender their mouthpiece to the nearest adult. If they get out of the car, they have to hand it to whoever is removing them from their seat. When we get to daycare, we bring them to the room and then take them away. Today I talked Sam into giving me hers while she was still in the car. She initially said “no!” and held on to it, but then thought it over, handed it to me, and looked pretty proud of her big-girl self.
Cold turkey would probably kill all of us plus the cats, so we’re trying to ween them down to just certain occasions. The long three-day weekend was trying because they get used to having it around the house at night and then think they should have it on weekends, too. I’m sure the daycare workers hate us on Mondays.
We are open to any suggestions for making them hate the binkies from those of you who are more experienced in this.
Another little addiction: doggies.
I remember when I was younger and had very little to do, I would dream of taking a three-day weekend and making a movie marathon out of it – you know, watching a whole series of sequels, like all the Star Trek movies in order, or all the Star Wars movies in any kind of order. Or watching a couple years’ run of a tv show.
We did something like that over the weekend.
We watched 101Dalmatians a 101 times. We couldn’t even change it up with the newer live version. All we have is the 1961 animated film. I’ve got the danged musical theme to that movie stuck in my head.
Every moment when we weren’t outside, the kids would run into the living room begging for “Doggies! Doggies! Doggies!!!!” We’d turn it on and they’d sit and watch it forever. We agreed because it was easier than dealing with screaming from telling them no and because it would allow one of us to run off and get some work done for a while. I swear though, I am soooooo freakin’ sick of that movie. We’ve got to do something. Anyone know if Lady and the Tramp is still available???
We’re also trying to find some used tricycles for them. New ones are either crazy expensive or really crappy. The sucky thing with two of them is that it just isn’t worth it to spend the $$ to get something nice because then we’ve got to get two of them (trust me when I say this) and there will be no siblings later on that can get more use out of them. New trikes (that aren’t plastic and don’t have steering problems) are around $70-$90. I just can’t see spending $140-$180 on something they’ll probably only use this summer. Especially when I’ll be off without pay for 6 days.
Does anyone out there know of a good source for used trikes? I suspect we could find them at yard sales, but we simply don’t have time to go driving around looking for yard sales. Matt works half the Saturdays each month and I for sure am not going to cart two toddlers around from place to place and try to keep an eye on them while looking at other people’s stuff.
freecycle.com
Put something that tastes ickky on the binkies. Liver?
Got Liv a used trike at the consignment store at the corner of Haslett Rd and Marsh Rd, in the horrible strip mall on the southwest corner. Something tots. $19. They have lots of riding things…
I’ve been striking out on freecycle. We’ve been to the consignment store, but everything we’ve looked at, her prices for used are only slightly below what they’d cost new. Maybe it’s a matter of timing.
We’ve got the pacifiers almost licked (pun intended). They only get them in the car and at bedtime…and when there’s only one parent in the house and she doesn’t feel like dealing with two screaming toddlers. Last night I took Jess’ pacifier from her in jest, and she forgot all about it two seconds later, so I stuck it in my pocket. At some point we’ll start putting something icky tasting on them to make them associate them with “ick” rather than comfort. We are making some progress.