Baden got rid of his dummy today.

Its been a while since he has had it. We slowly cut down and he had bitten one of the two we had left so it had a hole in it. I said I wasn't going to buy anymore.

I had them up in their usual spot for a while and then I realised he hadn't asked for it for aaaaages. I was going to chuck them in the bin, (I thought I actually had), but I put them up in the "junk" box on top of the fridge instead.

Today I rang my cousin to get her address and I grabbed the junk box to find a pen. I left the box on the bench and went about my business.

My heart sank when I heard a little voice say "ooh, dummy" and I turned around and he was rummaging through the box. I thought "damn and blast it, all that time has gone by and now he will have the stupid thing again".

He put it in his gob and took it out again and said "oh, broken". It was the bitten one.

I said "yeah, its broken, you might as well chuck it in the bin".

So he did.

I said nothing, I just waited for him to find the other one. I knew he would and I knew I couldn't sneak it away without him seeing. I was so annoyed with myself for leaving them there.

He found the other one, put it in his gob, sucked on it for about ten seconds, pulled it out, held it up to me and said "viff one not broken". I said "oh really" or something vague like that.

He put it back in, took it out again and then made a sound that sounded very much like "meh" and walked over to the bin and chucked it in there.

lol.

So, that's that then eh?

The photo is about a year old. It was taken during a particularly strange phase that Baden went through, for quite a while actually, where he would stick various household items behind his dummy. We have a cotton bud, a piece of wool, a curtain rail and a piece of ribbon. He would also stick another dummy behind the dummy. Very strange. He would walk around like that for ages and if you removed it he would crack the shits (it was one of those 'pick your battles' phases of parenting). I can't remember how long it went for, he just stopped doing it one day.