Sethie is still allowed to have a pacifier at bedtime. I learned my lesson when I took Thomas's pacifier away when he turned three and the child never napped again. I'll milk the napping as long as possible. But Sethie is a little too cognizant of his. He hides them around the house. He has special spots for them and if I take one away because it isn't bedtime yet, he will occasionally produce another one unexpectedly. He's like some kind of binky pirate--he has booty stashed all over the house.
The only official spot for the binky is what we call the "bink box", a little tin box that sits on a shelf in his room. It's where I deposit all the hidden binks I unearth around the house. Because the binks get spread out, it's often empty and at bedtime we end up doing the binky scour, so I try to locate at least one before we head upstairs to avoid the binky search-and-rescue operation. Last night, I spotted a bink that Sethie had left by the couch and dropped it in the bink box. As I was reading Thomas his bedtime story, Sethie stopped by the room--it was just like the look-in from the sergeant in all those police procedural shows: he stuck his head around the corner with a hand on the frame and gestured toward the stairs with a thumb, but instead of saying, "Captain, there's someone here to see you", he said, "I need to get my bink. It's downstairs."
I told him, "No--I grabbed that bink and put it in your bink box. Go look in the bink box."
Sethie paused and actually tilted his eyebrows. Then he said, "Mommy, I left it by the couch. It's downstairs. I need to go get it."
Ok, sergeant. "No it's not. I picked it up and brought it upstairs. Go look in your bink box."
Once again the eyebrows. "I don't think so, Mommy."
Mind you, Sethie is under three feet tall and weighs less than thirty pounds. He was wearing superman pajamas and holding his favorite green blanket. And I was having a discussion with him in which he was being SKEPTICAL I had actually acquired the bink and placed it in the box.
He was doubting the veracity of my statement. Is he supposed to even be capable of DOUBT at this age? Where is that developmental milestone listed? Age 3: "Speaks in complete four or five word sentences. Can throw a ball overhand. May doubt you are telling the truth and be determined to follow his own gut instinct."
Thomas was staring at me. I stared back. He started laughing into his shoulder. Finally, I said to Sethie in my Don't-Mess-With-Me-I'm-the-Mom voice, "IT'S IN THE BINK BOX. GO LOOK. NOW."
Sethie shrugged and walked out of the room. "Ok, Mommy, but I don't think so." I heard him head down the hall, uttering a few more, "I don't think so"'s as he went.
Of course a few seconds later, I hear him shout from his room, "Oh, right! It IS in here. Thank you, Mommy."
Next time, kid, I'll take a lie detector test.
