And on the Eighth Day, God Created Pacifiers

I'm not really sure why, but up until this weekend, Jude and I stayed away from pacifiers. Not literally, as if we're scared of them, but we haven't tried to see if John Patrick will take one. Personally, I guess I had an irrational fear of dropping our son off at school for his first day of kindergarten and watching him walk into the classroom with a pacifier in his mouth.

Our pediatrician, in fact, told us a little more than a week go, he didn't see a down side to allowing John Patrick to use a pacifier. He flat out dismissed the idea of "nipple confusion." In other words, he didn't think John Patrick was likely to have trouble nursing, if we started him on a pacifier.

We didn't think too much about it, either way, until the latter part of this week. John Patrick had been pretty fussy and hadn't been sleeping quite as well. Still, we hadn't really considered using a pacifier.

Today, while Jude was napping, our visiting friend, Cyndi Baines, and I were watching television with our children, when John Patrick started crying. He wasn't hungry, because he'd just been fed, and when I checked his diaper, it wasn't wet or dirty. In an act of desperation, I took a pacifier out of its package and tried to stick it in his mouth. He promptly spit it out. Looking at Cyndi, I remarked, sarcastically, "boy, the pacifier works really well," as John Patrick continued to cry.

Shaking her head at my ineptitude, Cyndi told me to hold the pacifier in his mouth, not just stick it in and let go of it. I followed her instructions and, suddenly, the clouds parted, the heavens opened, the sun shined down and angels sang in unison. Miracle? Maybe, just maybe. John Patrick relaxed, stopped crying and started sucking on the pacifier. For the next hour or so, he laid in my lap with the pacifier in his mouth and slept comfortably. More importantly, during the same hour, Jude slept comfortably upstairs in our bedroom.