Changing

The beginning of this year has brought a couple of small changes with Cole and Annadee. Annadee has used a pacifier since she was born, but has become much more attached to it these past few months. I dreaded getting rid of it because when she is fussy it's nice to just stick it in her mouth and have quiet for a few moments. However, I knew I wanted her to learn to fall asleep on her own without it, so we took it away last week after our Christmas traveling was over. It's been very good overall, with some rough spots here and there, but I can't complain. I can't believe she will be 16 months this month! She is growing up very fast these days and seems to be changing very quickly. 

When Cole was born, I received a baby blanket from one of my co-workers at Carthage. It was one of those fleece blankets with the tags all around the outside. At first, we really didn't use it much because it was quite big and you don't use big blankets with little newborns. But, when he was a few months old, I started using it, and when he gave up the pacifier around 6 months, his blanket became his "object of love" and he started sucking his thumb whenever he held it while going to sleep, traveling in the car, or just around the house when he needed comforted or was getting tired.

Cole has used this blanket just until a few days ago. We slowly, without any trouble, seemed to transition from using the blanket ALL the time and always needing to take it wherever we went when he was a toddler, to only needing it at nap time, bed time and those other "special" times. He only sucked his thumb when he had his blanket, which was becoming less and less all the time, so I never really cared about it.

Well, the past few months I have been telling Cole that  we were going to have to think about getting rid of the blanket and that he wouldn't be able to suck his thumb anymore. (The only time he really used it was at bedtime.) He didn't really seem to like this idea a whole lot, but he didn't freak out either. So, this last week, when we took Annadee's pacifier away from her, I told Cole one night that since we took Annadee's pacifier away from her, maybe it would be a good time to not have his blanket anymore and that he wouldn't be able to suck his thumb anymore, which was probably down to 1 or 2 minutes a day at this point. :) So, he agreed without any fight or tears! I wish all transitions were as easy as this. :)

I am sure there is some great parallel between changes our children experience and changes we experience as adults and how we handle them, but I am not really connecting them right now. ;) I guess all I can say is that when our children experience change, most of the time we as parents are still the same and able to love them and help them through those transitions. And, it's the same with God. If He calls us to change in some area or calls us to change a huge part of our life (job, moving, etc) He isn't going to leave us all on our own and say figure it out for yourself. He's there helping us, loving us, and always leading us.