In a moment of profound courage today, I did the unthinkable:
We are no strangers to cutting binkies, but usually I have a backup on standby in case things get ugly. We have also tried having him trade his binkies for toys but that results in some strange passive aggressive behavior against the toys that always ends badly. I've been reading him the "Binkies Aren't Forever" book for months now and we've talked a lot about 3 year olds not having binkies (admittedly, these aren't really discussions...just me talking out loud while he is in the room).
If he freaks out tonight I will have to decide if it is worth a trip to the store to buy a new one. Now, I might actually do that if Luke's cries convince me he is going to need therapy someday. However, Andrew is on Luke duty tonight while Cam and I "cry-it-out" in the basement. Andrew will certainly not drive to a store to satisfy a binky-tantrum.
Wish us luck! We be growin' up round here.
I know this looks really sad, but he did just wake up from a nap in this picture so he was already a little cranky. Still, it broke my heart to hear him say, "binky, broken?". I can still hear him whimpering upstairs.
And just because I like to make you all feel like the best parents in the world -one blog post at a time- here is what I'm serving Luke for lunch today:
Heart-shaped cheese sandwiches fried in butter and topped with powdered sugar. I'm trying EVERYTHING to get this kid to eat something besides peanut butter or else we will never be able to hang out with our peanut-allergy friends.
So far, he's not touching it.
Cutting food into shapes is not unusual around here. You might think we are cute parents trying to be creative, but really we are DESPERATE as we go to great lengths to please our 3 year old tyrant. He prefers letters of the alphabet above all else:
"G". I hate when he requests this one
"P"
It's okay, I promise we're push overs for a few things but we whip out our backbones when we really need them.
5 comments:
I'm not usually a book recommending type of person, but I just read "Child of Mine", pages 303 to about 330 on toddlers and eating, and it was life changing. It could just be anecdotal, but I changed a few things based on some suggestions in the book, and today Gigi ate oatmeal with bananas and milk for breakfast, squash, cottage cheese and pears, and fried eggs for lunch, and tomato red pepper soup with grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, with a few snacks in between. And I'm not trying to show off - she would not eat half of these things the other day, but now she eats all by herself and I'm getting used to the mess. I was really starting to get frustrated and engage in power struggles... Anyway it's a good read (my friend who has a Ph.D. in nutrition gave it to me for my baby shower when I was preggers with Gigi because she said it was a book well in line with current research), and it's super normalizing, so as your reading you can feel like your parenting is totally right on, and that we're all making the same moves as parents.
Good luck on cutting the binkie! Yay! Remember: in one week it will all be over, and you will all be the better for it! You can do hard things!
Binky business is tough stuff. Hang in there! Just think about all the things you remember about when you were 3 years old if you worry about traumatizing him.
Soy nut butter! My Luke has a nut free classroom, but is a die hard PB&J fan. He won't eat/accept anything else in his lunchbox except PB so rt his works for him and our allergic friends.
I've never heard of soy nut butter! I definitely have to try that!
Oh, and I just checked out the book Metta...might take me a year to finish but I can't wait!
Post a Comment