monkeys jumpin on the bed

as some of you know, we have been using a soother with cohen since he was pretty little. he never really did take to it all that well. it first introduced as a way to prevent him from gorging and then throwing up (a problem he was prone to as a newborn), and for that it did the trick. for the last couple of months though, it has been used almost exclusively as a tool for sleep, and even that has had a few glitches. you see, he knows that when i bring it out and try and get him to suck on it, it means i am trying to get him to sleep and so if he isn't in the mood his lips become firmly locked. it is how we communicate with each other.

then surprisingly in the last few weeks he has been getting into bed, rolling over and closing his eyes without the soother at all, and so i have started thinking it is finally time to retire it. when he does take it these days he almost always ends up throwing it on the floor or behind his crib anyway. i like to think it is his way of saying "i don't need this anymore mom!".

this brings us to last night when at 3am he woke up and started moaning. naturally i picked him up and fed him and then tried to gently place him back down hoping he would fall into slumber. it wasn't to be, and so i groggily felt around in the dark for the soother, hoping it would be my magic tool so that i could go back to sleep. it wasn't around him in the crib, and it didn't seem to be on the floor. i turned the light on only slightly and pulled the wheeled crib away from the wall to see if it had landed behind, but it wasn't there either. i was perplexed and tired and to be honest a little frustrated and then i finally looked over at him and asked "where is it?", to which he looked me dead in the eye and pulled his hand from his side so that it was straight out in front of him, the soother in his hand, a enormous smile on his face.