A Dad’s guide to the pacifier

Prior to being a dad I didn’t know beans about the pacifier.  Now that I’m a dad I still don’t know beans about the pacifier because my wife told us that we wouldn’t be using one with our child. 

Husbands will attest to this that sometimes their better half will simply state that (insert activity or thing that you may, or may not want to do) will not be happening.    Most of the time your spouse will be correct and that thing either wasn’t needed, would’ve added needless danger, calories or really would’ve made your butt look big.  I’m not talking about those black pants, I swear sweetie. 

The proclamation from my wife that we wouldn’t be using a pacifier was open to some discussion.  But let’s review, I didn’t know anything about child rearing before I was a dad.  I knew they cried, pooped and slept for the first five months, then got much more interactive and fun, kind of like a very difficult video game. 

As the stay at home dad going without the pacifier has been great. It’s great on many levels and sometimes I forget to acknowledge and understand why, for us, its better without the pacifier.  I was shopping the other day and Baby Mojo started up a conversation with another little girl in the other aisle.  

A high pitched coo, followed by some consonants, low vowels, a yelp, scream, yelp, small giggle and sigh.  It was a combination of these sounds going back and forth between my son and his little friend one aisle over.  The situation was a toddler version of windtalkers.  It was all very cute and I was surprised that by the end of their conversation my son hadn’t asked for me my wallet so he could buy some Silly Bandz for his new girlfriend. 

Had Baby Mojo been used to the pacifier that cute exchange, along with countless other cute noises, wouldn’t have been heard.   Those cute sounds were the basis for my wife insisting that we not use a pacifier. 

The pros of using a pacifier

They keep the babies pie hole quiet and develop the sucking reflex.  The sucking reflex is very important, except in sports, try not to suck at sports.  I was awful at baseball in particular.  I remember when I was on a T-Ball team and my alcoholic coach asked me to go warm up.  My coach used to ‘smell funny’, I said once or twice to my parents.  In hind sight that smell of alcohol and chain smoker of a coach may not have been the best athletic guide for young boys.  The only thing missing from this T-Ball team was a coach who spoke like Carl from Slingblade.

So Coach ‘Carl’, asked me to go out and practice swinging the bat.  I left the dugout and practiced swinging the bat, right into my smelly coach’s groin.  Well, had that coach been concentrating on coaching instead of smoking, he wouldn’t have gotten Mr. Johnson and the juice crew sacked by a five year old swinging a baseball bat. 

It was an accident, I was just a five year old boy who sucked at T-Ball, but I also used a pacifier when I was a baby.

The cons of using a pacifier

They fall on the floor and get filthy.  Baby Mojo gets enough filth in his mouth by eating the cat and dog fur on our floor, he doesn’t need any more.

They make your baby look like a Sing-a-ma-jig or a spokes toddler for the collagen set.  Those Sing-a-ma-jigs are the cutest toys I’ve seen in ages, Baby Mojo will be getting one of them for Christmas for sure.  Lips that have that puffy, fake, collagen look just suck.