Some Quickety Quick Takes for January

1.  When Landon was born and placed in my arms, he immediately began to nurse.  He knew exactly what to do, and he didn't stop for over an hour.  An hour of sweet newborn baby suckles.  My good friend Jill was there with me and she knew right away that he was going to be my binkie-baby. 

I, however, had no idea.  Neither of the girls were interested in pacifiers in the least, so it just never occurred to me that Landon would need one.  Well, until his second night of life.  Even that early on, it seemed clear that he needed more sucking than I was physically able to provide.  Plus, he cried if he got even a drop of milk when all he wanted was comfort suckling.  Enter: binkie.

Now, I constantly find myself wondering: HOW ON EARTH did I raise two babies from infancy without the benefit of a pacifier?  I'm just not sure how we survived!  Landon is an easy baby, it's true, but the pacifier holds a special place in my heart for the times when he's not quite as satisfied as usual. 

What about you?  Did your babies like binkies? 

I realized he's binkie-less here...it's something I'm trying to ignore just so you can see a sweet picture!

2. Probably not surprisingly, Landon also found his thumb over the past week. What do you think: should I encourage one over the other? Let him have the binkie at-will, but gently remove his thumb? Let him suck his thumb, and slowly forget about the binkie? Or forget about it all, and just let him enjoy his favorite pastime however he finds it?



3. You know, for the last 8 months or so, I've dutifully IGNORED Pinterest because I simply CANNOT have one more thing distracting me from the laundry I'd rather not do and the writing I'm too intimidated to begin. I've turned up my nose at invites. Vowed eternal abstinence from the Pin-Empire. 

Wondered how much fun it could be....

Yesterday, I accidentally (accidentally!!) took a teensy, little, bitty, innocent look at a pin somebody linked to....

and ended up spending 15 minutes scrolling through some nonsense that was increasingly hard to ignore. Such pretty, sparkly, ingenious things there were to see. 

So anyway, I fell off of my own poorly constructed anti-Pinterest wagon. Mourn my demise if you care to. 

And follow me over there. Let's see if I can get this bad boy figured out.



4.  Mia's class celebrated their 100th day of school this week, and I found this in her folder:

What's that in her (rather large) hand?  No, not the cane.  The BLANKIE.  Apparently, she still fully intends to hold onto it (though I doubt it will still be pink as its current color resides somewhere between pale gray and pale Caucasian skin-tone) through graduations and weddings and childbirth and all that.

But I fully understand her compulsion: I had a beloved blankie up until I was a junior-higher at least.  Poor thing disintegrated after that.  I've never been the same since.


5.  I'm okay with her being attached to such an innocent thing as a blankie.  I don't mind her being young while she's young, you know?  Because I'm getting glimpses of grown-up Mia.  Here, for example was thirty seconds or so of dinner conversation the other night:

"Mommy, why do boys have big pee-pees?"

"Uh...that's just how their bodies were made.  Because everybody's different, you see."  Vague, much?

"Yeah.  But mommy?"  And here is where I started to break into a cold sweat, worried about the direction of the conversation.  "When will the world end?"

What the...?  Still cold sweats, but for entirely different reasons.

And then we went on to have a little bitty conversation that blew my socks off in its sweetness.  I'll have to tell you about it soon.



6.  But look!  Happy little girls! 

We finally got them into bunk beds, making their small room a little more habitable.  In fact, this is where you can find them any hour of the day, pretty much.  The top bunk is available for entrance only after you've passed the inspection of the tiny bouncers.  If you're not on the list -- no matter how cool you promise to be -- you're not allowed in.  Period.  You're doomed to the living room while the party rages.

7.  So, uh.  I need to go check something realquick on Pinterest.  I'll be right back.  Promise...