A tribute to K's paci

We had you for 16 months and one day. Then after one small trip to the mall you were gone...


I had never seen this type of pacifier before. Little did we know it was a NICU paci and could not be bought anywhere else and no other hospital carried them.


Baby K was hooked on it right from the start, and he wanted no other.


Ol' Reliable as we called it, traveled with us to all of the doctor and audiologist visits and helped them run smoothly.



It was our sanity lifesaver for K's cochlear implant surgery. It helped him  get through the hours of not being able to eat or drink. When they took K back to the OR to have his surgery we gave him a kiss and begged the OR staff not to lose his paci.


And when K could finally eat,  the paci was waiting at his side.



In fact it was always by his side, if not in his mouth.




We feared that some day we might lose the paci, so K's Daddy went back to the hospital and begged the maternity ward nurses for one more. I think they thought it was sweet for a Daddy to come back so they gave him two.


K would often wake up in the night crying because he could not find his paci, so we put all three in the bed to help the odds. He always managed to find the original and keep it in his mouth ,while the others stayed in his hands.



 Some mornings we would find the two extras tossed outside his crib on the floor.


He ALWAYS knew the difference.



We had been so good about keeping track of it. When we were out and about, we would  have our "paci & CI check" and make sure we had all three before getting into our car. As you can tell that day we didn't :(
Each night we even had a ritual of washing and inspecting his paci while he drank his bedtime bottle.





That day we all headed out to the mall, to get K some shoes.  K began to get a little fussy while we were shopping so we gave it to him and got ready to leave. That was the last time we remember seeing it. We didn't even notice it missing until we got home and got ready him ready for bed. We searched everywhere.  We got the flashlight out and looked in the cars and garage. My husband even went back to search the mall parking lot. It was gone.You may call us crazy but we like to think of ourselves as sentimental ;)


Last picture taken with Ol' Reliable. He wasn't a "happy camper" for long.

 So long paci, you served us well.