Alden has always been a big fan of binkies.

(Kato follows suit just because he’s a little brother, and that’s what little brothers do. But ultimately, he’s a dedicated thumb-sucker. He could easily never see another binky again and be perfectly fine).

After a long build-up of deciding that eventually the binky has to go, we decided a few days ago that the time had come. This was precipitated by Alden losing a magnet that we had told her she could play with as long as she was careful with it, and the resulting discussion about how things can get lost, etc etc. So the company line is that we lost all of the various binkies we had lying about the house, which she seemed to understand (at 2 in the afternoon, hours away from bedtime).

So we braced ourselves for the inevitable fury that would be unleashed when bedtime rolled around and the binkies were still “lost”. Fury it was, but not in the way we expected.

Matthew took her into her bedroom to tuck her in, said good night, and closed the door. She immediately hollered for him to come back in, and demanded that he take the white puppy with him.

“The white puppy? What white puppy?”
“That one!”
“Um… this one?”
“Yes! I don’t want him in here!”
“Uh, okay.”

And so, white puppy was banished for the night.

He is a rather fearsome creature.

And that was that. We sat down at the dinner table, wondering when the crying was going to begin, and it didn’t. Beautiful, golden silence.

Then, five minutes later, we heard her bedroom door open. (Oh no.) The patter of feet running down the hall to the doorway to the main room. (Oh dear.) Then, the whup-whup-whup of the cat door. (??) And then the patter of feet returning to her bedroom. (?!?!?) And the slam of her bedroom door.

And silence.

We went over to the cat door and discovered this:

Apparently, “Lady” the cow also didn’t make the cut. Maybe all this time the binky was just protection against White Dog and Lady.

Oddly enough, there is another cow identical to Lady (also called Lady) who was allowed to stay and spent the night nestled in bed with Monkey, Bunny Rabbit, Hippo, Frog, Baby Hippo, Buzz Lightyear, Bucket, Sand Toys, My Fishy, Kato’s Fishy, Duck, Duck, Pirate Duck, Mama Duck, Oh, The Places You’ll Go, Lassie Goes to the Arctic, Miga, and Creaky Monkey.

The only crying all night came from the kitchen counter, where White Dog and Lady consoled each other in exile.