Notes from the crib

I took George to the pediatrician today because DH thought he must have an ear infection. The doctor declared George perfectly healthy and simply willful.

We took away the binkie about two weeks ago by taking George to Build-a-Bear and letting him "feed" a binkie to the animal of his choice (Binkie Puppy) and then trading all the remaining binkies to the lady in exchange for getting to take his puppy home. The first night was pure Hell, but the next five or six were just fine. We even made it through Vomit Fest 2009 without a binkie. But for four of the last five days, George has been waking up repeatedly at night and just screaming inconsolably. Last night was the final straw, he cried for about three hours. By two in the morning, we were at our wit's end. We scoured the house, turning over furniture and searching through bags to find a binkie, but we couldn't find one anywhere. So DH snuck Binkie Puppy out of the room and performed emergency surgery to extract the binkie from his foot. He washed it off, we gave it to George, and he was out within minutes. I gave it back to him at naptime this afternoon, and he napped for the first time in weeks. I even had to wake him up to take him to the doctor, so that we first-time parents could rule out any physical reason for all the crying. I was pretty sure George was just heartbroken over losing his comfort item and stubborn like his parents, and it looks like that was the case. So for the moment, he has his old pal back for naps and night-time and we'll try giving it up again later.

And since it's been so long since I posted a picture, here's George walking Binkie Puppy.