Saturday, January 2, 2016

Tripping Down Memory Lane

While surfing posts on my Facebook wall I ran across an article about how baby wipes cause sores. Featured was this photograph.
                                               
Photo Credit  Ben Turner
To me this looks like a pacifier was left in the child's mouth  much too long.

I can't keep my opinions to myself, I should have learned years ago how to do this but that common sense gene must have missed it's mark in my DNA. Being unable to control myself I said: 
This looks like a pacifier mark. It seems that this child's parents need to do a bye-bye binky ceremony. I did it with bottles and binkys. There were a few sad farewell tears as my child tossed them in the trash and then it was done. Letting a child suck on the thing until it causes sores and then blaming it on baby wipes is just bad parenting. That's my opinion and I am sticking to it.

But then my mind wandered back to my baby years with both my son and daughter. Those happy sad days when there was never enough money for diapers, formula and all the other essentials a parent needs plus all the things a new mother wants for her children. I wax nostalgic a lot so my mind usually ends up with some precious memory like our bye-bye bottle/binky ceremony. When I decided it was time I would have my child come with me to the kitchen, I gave them a plastic grocery bag and had them gather up all the offending items.
Photo Credit Google Images
We would then go out to the trash can I would open the lid and have the child put the bag in. They would say good bye, usually with a few tears and then it was done. Because I am a romantic and very sentimental I tried to sneak back  and get my son's bottles out of the garbage, but he found them and we had to do the ceremony again, this time leaving them in the trash. 

Brandon was never a pacifier baby but boy did he love that bottle. He had been bottle broken for several months when at the mall he snatched a bottle away from a baby, popped it in his mouth and took a good suck. I was devastated and the other child's parents looked at me like I was the ring leader of some sort of international baby bottle theft ring. I mean get the kid a drink already! But it implanted this very dear and tender memory in my heart.
Photo Credit Google Images
My daughter Lauree was a pacifier baby, she liked to suck and would fall asleep with the thing in her mouth. If you tried to pry it loose she would wake up with a start and look at you as if you were trying to take her very breath away. If not plugged up quickly, screams of anger would ensue. At 24 she is still a little like that, especially if someone tries to take something she is not ready to part with. I always had to have a large supply of pacies on hand because she would spit them out at odd times and places. My mother in law passed when my girl was 14,  as we cleaned out Carol's home I found  pacifiers tucked in tight little corners, making me wonder how in the world they managed to make it there. But then I remembered how my daughter would crawl off into weird places and fall asleep. If she got quiet we had to go look to see where she ended up. Lauree was either sleeping or she had a supply of lotions and powders and was cooking up a pretty gooey mess.

To any of you with young children, slow down and enjoy all the treasures they drop in your lap. The years pass much too quickly, one day you will want to go back like I do and savor the moments they give you all over again.

Dear Jesus Redo Please!