Monday, November 5, 2007

Birthorder

Being a sociologist and all I find the way that birth order affects us for the rest of our lives very interesting. Lots of differences have become evident since Blaine and I have been married; he is the oldest of five and I the youngest of five. It has brought up several interesting debates about who is more spoiled, who had it better, etc. etc.

Now that I have TWO of my own children and Gwen is no longer the oldest and the youngest, it has been interesting to see how birth order affects how I treat my children and how they behave.

Take the pacifier for example [note: I grew up calling them binkies, but that really weirded Blaine out so I have converted to calling them pacifiers]. When Gwen was little I was adamant that she used Nuk pacifiers or just any kind that wasn't the weird kind that you could see right through into her mouth (Soothies). I was kind of a pacifier snob. Well, Bentley LOVES the soothies, I used to fight it, but resistance is futile, it really doesn't matter what kind of pacifier he has right?

The thing about Soothies though is they are pretty hard to keep ahold of. I have contraptions for keeping other types of pacifiers attached to my kid; all sorts of straps and stuff. The soothie just kind of floats around our house and car,etc.

With Gwen I would wash her paci meticulously every time it fell on the ground. She could not have it again until it had been thoroughly washed. With Bentley I give it a good scrubbin with my pants or dress or shirt and give it back to him ( true blue "dry" cleaning).

Bentley's pacifier has had quite a rough week. It started on Halloween when a cute little girl bedazzled us all by using his pacifier as a baton and shuffled it around her little toes. It was cute, and I rinsed it off before giving it back. Yesterday Blaine frantically asked Gwen to pick up Ben's paci. Gwen sensed the urgency of the situation and rather than putting down her sandwich to pick up the paci, she picked it up with her feet and handed it, with her feet, to Blaine (talented kid I've got). Rinsed it then too. Also yesterday one of Gwen's little boy friends got hold of the paci and adopted it as his own for a minute, no worries. We rinsed it off. But yesterday when Swiper was walking around with the pacifier, that crossed the cleanliness line and it was off to boil the pacifier. I think in any one of the aforementioned instances with Gwen I would have discarded the pacifier and bought new ones. The fact that it takes a dog sucking on Ben's paci for me to sterilize the thing is pretty sad. Or maybe it is just more practical. We can't have a weak immune system in this day and age, can we?

The point of this whole e-mail though is that I was the FIFTH child. What the heck do you think my pacifier went through before it got sanitized?

P.S. For your reading pleasure I am including a link to one of those forwarded e-mails regarding this subject, I thought it was pretty funny! http://www.forwardedfunnies.com/birth_order_of_children_011430.html

7 comments:

Strong Family - said...

Hey Kristi! I love reading your blog. You are so fun. Just thought I'd add a note. Connor's pacifier (child #4) gets rinsed off every 3 days when I change the sheets. I don't think it's ever been sterilized. But he sure has the greatest immune system. I think he's only been sick once! Side note if you think I'm a horrible mom...he does only use it in bed. So it doesn't get dragged all around the house. Just dropped behind the crib into dustland.

Julie said...

Hey Fiddle...my sister-in-law uses those binki's and she tied a piece of string through the two holes and made a little loop, and then she attached the attacher thing to that. Get it? You should try that. Clever, huh?

Julie said...

Oh and P.S. Jeff is the youngest of 5 and I'm the oldest of 6.

Emily Youngdell said...

Hey Kristi this is Emily. I am so excited to have a new blogging friend! My camp name was Freckles and Melissa (Timber) and I were counselor's together in 1999. When did you two work together?

I love your blog about birthorder.
My husband and I too have had many discussions about who gets more attention, who is the most spoiled, etc. I also loved how your daughter picked up the pacifier with her toes. Smart gal. My Dad picks up everything with his toes and it drives my Mom insane. Personally I think we have toes for a reason, why not use them?
Oh and I loved the story about you wearing your cookie monster shirt and dancing to dance dance revolution. Hilarious mental picture. You know what, if company just pops in they should expect anything, right?

G said...

So glad I'm not the only one weirded out by the word "binky." If either of my kids had taken a pacifier, I'd have been all over "dry cleaning."

M and I are both first borns...

Ralphie said...

Did you know that there was a study done that proved that dogs mouths are cleaner than humans?

I'm not even kidding.

Anonymous said...

Kris,
I can't wait to see how I am as a mom. Do you think I will be that picky about stuff? I remember you were the best mom to Gwen (the pacifier is only one small example as to how you protected that child with every ounce of energy you had and then some.) I am sure Ben will turn out just as great even with an unsterilized pacifier. I love your blogs!