The Preferred Pacis

We are a pacifier household. When Devin was little (little-er, really), he had to have three pacifiers at a time -- one in his mouth and one in each hand. It took an act of God to get him to give them up.

But he did give them up, just in time for the twins to get addicted to them.

Luckily, they aren't nearly as dependent upon them as Devin was. They don't walk around all day with them in their mouths, they don't care to take them places with them and if they need one because of some injustice that's been done to them during the day, any paci will do in a pinch.

But bedtime is another story.

We have four pacifiers that will do at bedtime. And they are the only pacifiers that will do at bedtime. We call them "The Preferred Pacis."

They are just Gerber brand pacifiers, so you'd think they wouldn't be hard to find. But they aren't the NUK pacis, which are the most easily found. Instead, we somehow got hooked on the Gerber, soft-centered latex pacifiers.

Okay, no big deal, right? They're Gerber -- they can't be that hard to track down.

Wrong.

It seems that Gerber has discontinued making these pacifiers. They are still making the smaller sizes, but my girls won't have anything to do with those small ones. They have to be the larger sizes (6+ months) and these are the sizes that are no longer being produced.

I'm stressing about this. I can't imagine the girls' reaction if we ever lose all four preferred pacis. There will be a lot of sleepless nights on our hands.

I've sent a strongly worded email to Gerber, asking about getting my hands on some of these now-worth-their-weight-in-gold pacifiers. I've bid on a few on eBay ("Ewwwwwwwww!" I know, but I'm at my wit's end!) and even won one of the auctions in which I will be paying nearly $14.00 for two pacifiers.

Desperation has set in.

Despite completely different subject matter, I feel a lot like this: