Flannery at Fifteen weeks

Well, it's happened. Flannery has finally cooperated (or not, depending on how you look at it), and has accepted our pleas to take a binky. Hallelujah, and I do mean that wholeheartedly!

For the past few weeks, she's been putting her hands up to her mouth, and slowly but surely, has gotten her thumb and fingers into her mouth. This weekend, she learned how to suck on them, much to our chagrin.

I am all for thumb sucking...as a former thumb sucker myself, I have no problem with it. But I will admit that it is harder to quit the thumb than it is the binky (since we went through that with Amos) and even though I've didn't like the binky before kids, I now am grateful for them and will even push them on my child to avoid thumb sucking.

So I prepared myself for a thumb sucker. But then the unthinkable happened: she started sucking her two middle fingers on her left hand. THE WORLD ENDED!!! (just kidding, not really!)...but almost!

Not only is finger sucking so much worse for your teeth, in my opinion, it's just not cute!

So Nathan and I both resolved to start the binky in hopes that she would take to it as well.

And she did.
You cannot imagine how happy we were that she finally agreed to it!I started trying on Tuesday while we were at the Children's Museum. She was in the front pack all day, which made it easier for me to hold it up to her mouth, waiting for her to accept it and latch on. It took awhile, about half an hour, but after she realized it and cooperated, she sucked on it all day! She even fell asleep with it! Hazaah!
Since then, I have been pushing it on her everytime I see her put her middle fingers in her mouth and so far, she continues to take it! In the past, she's taken the binky once or twice, but then has forgotten how and so has not made a habit of it.
I know it's strange to think of handing my child an addiction at so young of an age...it's something we really considered with Amos. But with Flannery, it seems that she is going down that road and we are just trying to help choose the path of least resistence, or at least, the path of easiest thing to quit, when it's time!

Funnily enough, the binky she likes is the one given to us from the hospital...it's soft and has this sweet vanilla smell to it. I've tried a few other varieties, but this is the one that stuck. So maybe we'll try a different one later.

Too, I do miss her little smile as I am still getting used to the binky in the face, but oh well. She's still a cutie bug and we love her so much!

I am happy and excited just thinking about the future. It's been tough to have to drop everything to feed her or deal with a screaming baby when you can't do a feed. This three month turning point is monumental and I'm starting to feel hopeful that things will work into a routine and that maybe I'll be able to feel more like myself soon and less like a food factory! :)

In other exciting news, she has moved into her room, into her big crib and has been sleeping there all week, for naps AND overnight! The first night, she woke up a few times to eat and Nathan had to nudge me awake each time she woke up and it was a bummer to have to get out of bed to get her, but since then, she's slept by herself, from 10pm-7am and it's been great! She is such a big girl!! It's been great to have our room back, too!

Here are a few more pictures of our smiley gal, sans bink (with the blanket her Great Grandma Sheehan made her!).

I know I keep saying this, but she's growing up so fast!