The Last Pacifier

It's that time again. Time to sweep through the house for the few minutes that passes for "cleaning." (Papers will get shuffled. Pillows will get fluffed. Very occasionally, beds will be fully made. There is a known state of "tidy" around here, but there is no actual, deep-down clean... For, like, 2 years. Judging? I had a surprise 3rd baby at 42. Just ignore than spider web and move on, citizen.)


 So I'm making a pass through my bedroom, holding stacks of unsent graduation cards and piles of corrected homework, wondering what gets prioritized, what recycled, and where I'm currently keeping the "2016-17 To Save" pile? Then I notice ... in the far right cubby of the secretary desk... and I sigh. "It's still there.


"Another round of indecision," I think. "I can't deal with this today." It is perhaps the most daily stress of the mothering life I did not choose: all these daily decisions that need making at warp speed. Though it's my core personality to assess in the moment, to make a gut decision, to DO AS I GO, I seem to have completely lost that ability.


 I can't weigh what has lasting importance in the moment. I know I'm not the clearest thinker right now, and since all I have is the moment, I spend mine in a mental state of freeze-frame. I overthink, re-think, backtrack, sidetrack or sign off all non-emergency decision-making.


 The object that has me dead stopped and perseverating is a blue plastic Soothie. The pacifier sent home with us from the hospital in March 2015. Our third son, Lucas, never really took to pacifiers, of any sort. So this is hardly a well-worn item or a thing of deep emotional attachment. I've already given away or sent to consignment the adorable Wubba-Nubba -- a paci attached to a tiny stuffed animal; the clever mustache pacifier; the set matching our bottles; AND the pair I registered for, with their sweet, printed fabric holders.


 This, then, is the last pacifier.


 My "baby" is 18 months old today, and I cannot seem to file this pacifier away. Is it a recyclable or a keepsake? I don't know. But it is a token, and maybe a talisman. Sign of something that shocked and rocked us, but that we survived. I still cringe a little when I think about the baby days. The sweetness and wonder, sure, but also the struggle. So deep, and from so early on. The first days back at work, cotton-headed and forgetful, always rushing, always dragging, never sure I was where I was supposed to be. That string of evenings -- weeks of them -- marked by colickiness only running water could resolve. The pain and the blood and the fevers that came with breastfeeding. The painful decision to stop. The fight not to judge myself, every day. The crying, crying, crying of that tiny little boy... when I left, when I came back. And even in so many camera-worthy moments I was afraid to exhale, because what if I let down my guard and the fussing fired up?


 I hold the humble pacifier and it all floods me. I find I cannot look away.


 It's thorny stuff, this motherhood. Every time I think I get a handle on it, I'm pretty much rocked by some new and unexpected wave of deepest emotion. And maybe the most bizarre part is how little those internal tsunamis show on the outside.


 I have no idea, frankly, if I've done enough for Lucas so far. Have I been enough? Loved enough? I am beset by doubts deeper than any I have known as a mother. But whether I failed or succeeded in his babyhood, those days are not coming back. It's time, as Elisabeth Elliott says, to do the next thing.


 We are making progress as a family. Maybe not every day. But across the days. We are meeting the boy's needs and reducing his drama. Slowly. Sacrificing-ly. Surely. And that pacifier is not where we are today. The Soothie is of days gone by. The "Time for Sleep" book, Woody and Bullseye, the Beanie Baby puppies -- those are the things of today. And -- though it still has its struggles, very real and none too healthy -- today is not yesterday.


 I didn't have the strength to trow away the Soothie this morning, but tonight I think I will. I think I'm ready not to hold so tight to ALL the things. To leave some space -- and grace -- for more recent and better things. When the box of Baby Lucas memories gets packed, I want a plastic cowboy inside. I want ALL the board books he teethed on. His "mankie" and his little leather moccasins. Maybe a nightgown and some teeny pajamas with back pockets and pastel-colored raindrops. But no pacifiers. He wasn't a baby to be pacified, anyway.