by Kelly Wilbanks posted in Parenting

My 2-year-old loves her binkies. She cuddles them, hides them, lines them up in a row, and even runs around with two in her mouth on occasion. We've all tried to steer her to a binky-less existence. I've casually dropped hints like "Big girls don't use binkies." Her dad has worked really hard to limit them just a night-time/nap-time usage. I even overheard her big sister tell her "Total babes don't use binkies," which made me laugh a lot.

But rather than embracing an elevated status as a "big girl" or a "total babe," she's clung even more tightly to her binkies. I tried to give it more time. That seemed to work with her older sister. When Vivi was almost 3, my friend adopted a little boy and Vivi decided (with some light suggesting from me) to give him her binkies. I wrote about the story here and loved how it all turned out. I wanted that for Evie and I tried to wait for the right moment so there could be a natural break and (honestly) less of a battle. I waited -- hoping for an opportunity that would motivate Evelynne to give her binkies away. We waited through different events: Christmas, room shuffles, and sickness. We've marched closer to 3 and Evie continued to hoard her binkies and not give an inch where they were concerned.

Finally, I heard a sound that let me know that we'd come to an impasse. The binky sucking sound that Maggie Simpson makes is the sound a binky makes whe...