Uncle Quinton (FYI Briggs Family, Quinton is out here in Texas on a summer internship at BNSF. With any luck he'll get a job offer and join us out here after graduation!) needed to study for finals for an online class he's taking and so he offered us a chance at a date night with some free babysitting. We took Eliza over to his place, chatted for a while, then headed off. On the date, it occurred to me that I hadn't really given him a full run-down of the routine. He's done it before though, so I figured if he ran into any questions he'd give us a call.
We get back from our bookstore date at Barnes and Noble (jolly fun) and I walk in the front door to see Eliza's pillow--which also has her blanket, doggie dog, and binky inside the pillow case--sitting on the floor. Assuming all heck had broken loose, I listened for some wailing or something. Nothin'.
Annie: "Uhh, did she go down okay?"
Quint: "Yeah! She didn't cry or anything! I went up to check on her and she was just doing the happy little babble thing and went to sleep a little while later."
Total amazement. Utter astonishment. Dumbfounded in the extreme.
I went upstairs to get her out, wondering if she was just laying in there still and quiet wondering where the heck all of her stuff was. But I open the door, and sure enough, she's snoozing away in a completely empty portacrib.
... WHAT???? ...
We picked her up, she was in the usual dazed-coma state when she gets woken up, and we took her home. On the way home, Blake and I were talking about how shocked we were at the whole situation and decided to try putting her down in her bed without the binky when we got home. "Maybe she's not as attached [cough... addicted] as we thought she was." WRONG.
She didn't drift right off to sleep like normal, but she did ultimately go to sleep. Score! Just when we thought we were out of the binky-woods with no scars or lacerations, 4:00 rolls around. Eliza stirs and decides: "Okay. I've put up with these shenanigans for long enough, you sneaky parents, you. Where in tarnation is my binky!!" We let her work things out on her own--over. and over. and over. until morning. But my goodness, I think we all "woke up" a little tired!
We went to church, everything was fine there, and as per usual, Eliza zonked out in the car. (Roasting car, one or two hours past nap-time, 20 minute drive, pretty church music. It's inevitable. I try to shout at her to keep her awake and make her say 'moo' at the cows we pass and look at all of the cars, but she's just too pooped.) I generally come home and put her straight in bed--I tried the same stunt today, still sans binky. Yeah. That didn't go over well. It's not like she throws a violent tantrum or anything, but sleep just was not happening.
She was tired, I was tired, and I was getting to the point that I was almost ready to suck the binky to help myself go to sleep. Honestly. I have no idea how we aren't in a world full of adults walking around sucking on pacifiers. (Maybe we are, and those pacifiers are just the straws of a Big Gulp. But that's for another blog post.)
I'm not sure when I'm going to have the fortitude to make her quit, but I'm just not ready for this reform yet. Long live the binky.
Cheers to more frequent blog posts! Keep 'em comin'! Also, at least she is addicted to her binky and not her thumb. I know you love that you were a thumb-sucker, but I think that one is WAY harder to break than the binky!
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