Pacifier Confessions

You know how when you’re doing something you know someone wouldn’t approve of, you tend to avoid that person? Or how when you’re battling with a sin you don’t want to give up, your prayer life starts to lack? Or how when your nearly-3 year old still uses a pacifier, you put off their first dental exam for as long as possible before CPS shows up at your door for dental neglect? Um, yea. 

You are ‘supposed’ to schedule your child’s first dental check up when they are a year old and since Forest had 12 teeth on his first birthday, it would have probably been a good idea. But the pediatrician said reeaaalllly it’s not so important until they get their 2 year molars in, which is also the time she said I should reeeaalllly take the pacifier away. Well that was reaaaallllly only like 5 months ago so I’m not procrastinating too much. 

Here’s my defense:  he cut his final molar about 2 days before we started potty training. One transition at a time. After potty training we were house hunting and moving. One transition at a time. Once we moved, his dad went away for a month. One transition at a time. Once his dad came home he started preschool. One transition at a time. And basically, that’s where we are. 

But this week I finally bit the bullet and took Forest to the dentist. The week leading up to it, I tried, reaaalllly hard to sort of suggest to him that maybe he should give up his pacifier to sleep which he agreed to for all of 5 minutes. So I decided my tactic was to not mention the paci at all at his dental appointment. To let the dentist look at Forest’s teeth and if he could instantly tell then I would honestly say that ‘he only uses it to sleep and we have vague plans to take it away sometime before kindergarten’. 

Instead the dentist said ‘Great teeth! No cavities, they’ve come in well and have excellent spacing. Keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll see him again in 6 months.’ So I basically feel totally absolved to ‘keep doing what we’re doing’ (doctor’s orders!) and will casually continue to mention to Forest that he’s probably too big for the paci until he finally agrees, hopefully some time before kindergarten...