A Brave New World

Tomorrow will bring big change in our house.
Tomorrow, my  lastest baby will shed his final vestiges of infancy- his soother.
At two and a half, this is long overdue. And it shouldn't be producing the amount of anxiety that it is.
The bad thing is that it's not even Alex who is anxious about it. It's me.
And I'm not anxious for the reasons you might think.
"He'll only cry for it for a day or so," people tell me. But crying? At this point in my maternal career,  I can handle that. Crying doesn't even phase me any more. In fact, I get more concerned when they're NOT crying. When things are too quiet, I begin to fear that something sinister is going on. They're in the kitchen drinking Draino, I think, irrationally. Because I don't even have any Draino. If my drains get clogged, too damn bad.

So what am I anxious about?
I'm anxious about letting go of his babyhood.
"But he'll always be our baby," Geoff told me, gently, when I told him of my fears. "Even when he's old, he'll be our baby."
"I know," I agreed. "But it's just the idea of what the sucky symbolizes," I said, which sound like I'm just all overly analytical about the whole thing, which of course, I am. But still- suckies were some of the first things I bought when I found out I was pregnant with him.I packed them in my bags to take them to the hospital. And he always looked so cute to me, so innocent and angelic, as he slept with his sucky in his mouth- pastel colors initially, which later changed to bolder colors with airplanes or dinosaurs on them, pulling at it at random intervals, sometimes lazily, sometimes furiously, his perfect lips curled into a perfect O.

So naturally, I 've given a great deal of thought to the fanfare with which Sucky should make his last curtain call. The plan for Sucky Quit date is this:

After supper tomorrow, we're going to go on a Great Sucky Roundup, as Alex has Sucky caches all over the house that we don't even know about. The sucky's will be collected into a gift basket. We will, as a collective, work on a letter to the Sucky Fairy, explaining that Alex has gotten too big to use them, and could she please find a little baby who could use them and give them to him? We will then leave the basket by the front door.
In the night, the Sucky Fairy will come. And we can't be sure, but we think that she MIGHT bring a present for Alex for being such a big boy and helping all the little babies of the world. I think it wold only be right and decent if she did.
Simple quid pro quo, and all that.

Alex seems excited by this plan. "I love the Sucky Fairy!" he told me.
I hugged him, and did a fake cry. "My baby boy is getting so big!"
He touched my face, and said "let's not be sad," which made me want to cry for reals.

It's pretty bad when a two year old has to console me. So I pulled myself together. This isn't about me and my need to have an infant to coddle. This is about him, and his need to grow up.  I can't infantilize him just because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Even though, yes, it does. It really, really, does.

But we have to take this step together, and embrace a brave new world. I think he's ready for it.



Bring It