dummy | jmgoyder

Spitting the dummy 2

by jmgoyder

Peer pressure is a funny thing. No matter how much you resist it, you end up succumbing. Even when you’re only three and a half years old.

It wasn’t long before Ming’s fourth birthday that he began to realize that it wasn’t just Grandma who disapproved of his dummy (his “tuntun”).

The dummy situation changed rather dramatically for Ming when one of his playgroup friends Dillan came for a playover (Ming’s first ever). As soon as Dillan saw Ming pop the dummy into his mouth, he shrieked with laughter and yelled, “Ming is just a baby, Ming is just a baby,” in that singsong, horrible way children-teasing-other-children do with such sadistic delight.

Ming immediately spat the dummy out, unpinned it and dropped it, before throwing himself at Dillan and wrestling him to the ground. Then, when Dillan started crying, Ming mimicked him by yelling, “Dillan’s just a baby” over and over again, furiously.

I was a bit shocked at the sudden violence of the confrontation and it took a lot of chocolate cake and lemonade to pacify the two little macho machines.

But it marked a turning point for Ming. He knew now that it wasn’t only Grandma who thought the dummy was silly. Dillan’s words had sunk in and now Ming was actually embarrassed about his tuntun – embarrassment being another new experience.

Anthony and I had never worried about the dummy phase; we knew it wouldn’t last forever anyway. But after his altercation with Dillan, Ming started trying to kick the habit by himself. “Oany lemmee have it when I go to bed,” he’d say, sternly, putting it under his pillow.

His self-discipline amazed us. Only once over the ensuing weeks did Ming succumb to a day-time suck, and that was after he had a nasty fall and grazed his knee. But he still depended on that dummy at night-time.

Then, one afternoon, it wasn’t there and we couldn’t find it anywhere (I discovered it later inside the pillow case). Panic stations! I rushed up to the local shop and there was just one left – a pink one. My friend, Anna served me and asked who the dummy was for.

“Umm, we have visitors with a new baby,” I lied, guiltily.

“Okay,” she said, hearing the urgency in my voice.

I got home and Ming took the new dummy out of its packaging and stuck it straight into his mouth, only removing it briefly to murmur sleepily, “You are the bestest mummy in the whole wide world.”

And a month later he was over it. Just like that, he forgot about the tuntun. But I’ve kept that last dummy as a reminder of my great big beautiful baby.

Ming without dummy

I bumped into Anna the other day and told her the truth about this and she couldn’t stop laughing!

Family Friendship

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Spitting the dummy 1

by jmgoyder

From the day he was born until the age of four years, Ming absolutely adored his dummy. He eventually called it his ‘tuntun’ (because Anthony remembered calling his own dummy a ‘tuntun’!) and it was pinned to Ming’s shirt 24/7.

By the time he was two years old we were up to tuntun number 11. Transitions from old, flat, chewed up, disgusting tuntuns to new, fresh, bulbous tuntuns were always difficult though and Ming would shriek, “I want my oooooooold tuntun!” But eventually he would bite and chew and suck the new dummy until it flattened into the shape he liked.

My mother thoroughly disapproved of the dummy, and by the time he was nearly four, Ming knew that when Grandma visited, she would say, “Oh take that horrible thing out of your mouth; you’re a big boy now!” So he became very surreptitious. He would suck the dummy madly until he heard her voice at the door, then he’d quickly unpin it and give it to me, so that she wouldn’t see it. “Quick, Mummy, hide the tuntun from Gwamma or she’ll gwowl,” he’d whisper, panic-stricken.

Sometimes I would put it in my pocket but if my mother stayed for longer than a couple of hours, Ming would soon become transfixed by the shape of his tuntun through my jeans pocket and stare at it longingly. Or he would brush past me and pat it, as if to say, “Soon, tuntun, soon.”

So I started putting it under his pillow so he could go and have a secret suck when he wanted to. It was hilarious – he was like a wardrobe drinker! He’d be in the middle of playing snakes and ladders with my mother and he’d suddenly dash away, up the hallway into his room, saying, “Juss a minit, Gwamma,” over his shoulder, then dash back, eyes slightly glazed, but resume the game with new energy. His secret was safe with me, and my mother never had a clue (until I told her later and she and I would crack up laughing!)

As soon as my mother went home, Ming would rush to his pillow, retrieve the tuntun and pin it back onto himself, then put it in his mouth and suck with great gusto, an ecstatic, dreamy expression almost immediately flooding his face.

I hadn’t thought to confront my mother about the fact that her disapproval of the dummy was affecting her relationship with Ming until one day, after she left, Ming climbed onto my lap, tuntun reattached and said, “I doan like Gwamma vewy much sometimes, Mummy.”

“She just thinks you’re too big for your tuntun, because you’re nearly four now,” I said, giving him a hug.

“Does you and Andony hate my tuntun too?” he said, a worried look on his face.

“Of course not!” I said, reassuringly.

“Thank Gawwwd!” he exclaimed, putting the tuntun into his mouth and looking up at me, his big blue eyes soft with contentment. And relief!