Cold turkey on the binky.

I'm an idiot.

I've been getting up every night, as much as three times a night, stuffing the binky back into Lauren's mouth. Why? I have no idea. It's one of those things that sneaks up on you, like you think "oh, it only takes a minute to go in there, put it in her mouth and get back in bed." But really, when you do it two or three times, it adds up. And, because her witching hours are between 2 and 5 am, what it adds up to is interrupted sleep right before it's time to get up. It was really making me crabby.

So as of Sunday we went cold turkey on the binky.

Why Sunday you ask? Because if she cried all night at least I could relax a little bit at work.

Don't get me wrong. When I'm at work, there's work to do. But everyone here can feed themselves, wipe their own butts (at least I hope so), and walk. Which is really relaxing for me.

Even my husband said that we should do it on a weekend. You know, so we could take a nap if we needed to. Give me a break! Who are these people with small children who get to nap on Saturday?! Sure, I can nap while Lauren naps. As long as I don't mind Grace watching Go Diego, Go! and climbing on and off the bed about a hundred times.

But I'm getting off track. What really makes me an idiot is that the reason I decided to go cold turkey now was that I have a friend coming to care for my children while we go to Hawaii in a couple of weeks and I didn't want her to have to get up in the night. That's right. I'm perfectly willing to do this endlessly myself, even though I hate it. But I can't stand the idea that someone else would have to. Why wouldn't I treat myself with this much consideration? I don't know, but I feel kind of stupid.

So last night was Night 1. Lauren cried for about 7 minutes at bedtime, but she was also in meltdown from having cousins over for the entire weekend. She woke up at about 1:30 and cried on and off for about 20 minutes. Not in that sad, I'm-lost-without-the-binky-please-cuddle-me way, but more in a who-in-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are-taking-my-binky-away way. She was pissed. But she got over it and went back to sleep until 6:45.

It's the deepest I've slept in a very long time.

P.S. A couple of weeks ago I did take a nap while Lauren was napping. Grace sat on the bed watching Noggin, and once when she got back on the bed she fell on my head. But I did nap and when I woke up Grace said, "Mom, I need to tell you something." I said, "What is it, sweetie?" She said, "While you were sleeping I went downstairs and ate M&Ms." I practically had to bite my tongue off to keep from laughing. Because, when I was a kid, I would have done the same dang thing. And, hey, it could have been worse.