The Preciouses: Pink and Purple

Our pediatrician has recommended during our last few visits that we cut A-chan off cold-turkey fashion from her pacifiers. After some hemming and hawing we tried to take his advice and at least get her to cut back.

It backfired, badly.

What had been a 'paci' and a spare have become a matched set which she expects and requests now together. Thus the legendary team of "Pink and Pohple" was born - two jewel-tone pacifiers, one ruby and one amethyst, are her frequent request if she is stressed or wants comfort.



She will tolerate being deprived of one for short periods so long as we continue to put her off. Otherwise she expects to have one in her mouth and the other in her hand, often being used to touch her lower lip and usually switching back and forth from one to the other every few minutes. On occasion she'll manage to have both in at once, a practice I find inexplicably schrecklich.

Trying to use one paci and carry a spare has its problems. For instance, if someone hands you a cup to drink from, what are you to do? You can't remove your current paci without putting something down first, but putting down the cup seems counterproductive and putting down the spare is counter to the desire to have a spare. Poor A-chan will often stand there waiting vexedly for Nata or I to intervene and remove a paci, and will sometimes even hand over the spare as well.

We are still working on her paci use, and would like to get it down to none. Aside from the double-paci use *shiver*, her need to have both when sleeping in my opinion disturbs her sleep. The spare doubles the chance that one will fall overboard and land with a clatter on the wooden floor and wake her up, or at least plant in her subconscious mind the idea that Something Is Needed. This additional chance of loss (neatly turning the idea of a "spare" on its head) played out poorly twice yesterday, as she dropped the spare while riding in a shopping cart in Target and none of us noticed it immediately (resulting in an immediate paci search-and-rescue mission amongst the toddler clothes) and again as I carried her in from the car that night when the spare was knocked from her hand into the leaves on the ground (requiring me to round up a flashlight and go back out for more S&R).

On the positive side, I can usually get her to surrender both to me first thing in the morning, and conveniently misplace them until her nap time ("No, I don't know where they are"), and then sneak them away when first discarded after her nap until bedtime. Not all of the time, however, and the fervor with which she takes them back has lead to Nata and I refering to them as "the preciouses". She's not _quite_ Golem-like in her obsession for them, but we skirt around saying "paci", "pink", or "purple" while she is doing without lest we risk triggering her desire for them.