I WRITE this in utter despair.  Utter “I’m weaning my child off the dummy” Despair.

I won’t say it’s been hell because it hasn’t …. she’s talking much more, saying cute things like “sis” (what’s this?), “star”, “fnn” (fan), “bida” (bye Dad), “sat” (what’s that?)… but for about an hour or more before naps and bedtime the Shit Hits The “Fnn”.

I wash dishes and she cries. I do the laundry and she cries. I drive to the shops and she cries. Push trolleys, she cries. Console her, she cries. Yell to God to help me, she cries. Pick stupid fights with husband who is trying to help, she cries. Lose all rationality, she cries.

It’s exhausting. And I guess she’s pretty tired too.

But I took comfort in something I read recently – not sure now if it was bonafide, government-funded research or just someone’s take on it – that tears and tantrums are “gifts”. Yes, gifts.

Tears are an important and, for really young children, the sole method in stress release. Considering that everything is new to them and, in the case of my child, everything is challenged by the conflicting desires of her sibling, there would be a lot of stress in her life.

And I’ve taken away her dummy. The one piece of plastic that stands between her and the rest of the world.

The article went on to say how we condition our children to control emotion, respond “nicely” and develop more appropriate stomach ulcers rather than vent frustration in ill-advised tears and tantrums.

I’m well versed in the “push it all the way down” school of emotional baggage, so it’s no wonder I have been corking up potential frustrations with a pacifier (and in my case a chocolate croissant… or two).

So, now the dummy’s out of the equation she is left to confront all these frustrations the only God-given way she knows how. Good for her (I can say that now, while she’s fast asleep and oh-so quiet), but what about the rest of us passive-aggressive types with ringing ears?

While the screaming bludgeons our eardrums, and my son vies for attention the next octave up, my own cries of desperation only serve to shock everyone into stunned silence momentarily, before we all start crying.

 And once the noise has abated, I’m physically and emotionally spent. There’s no energy left for my own tears of release or even the ability to articulate all those purple and swollen emotions. Except for here, of course, and while writing this entry, I’ve had a quiet epiphany (the best kind) that perhaps this ought to be a chance to face up to my own issues.

The fears and humiliations I’ve politely endured over the years much like a Jane Austen character (if  Elizabeth Bennet’s parents separated when she was young and she went on to become a binge-drinking uni student before settling into a life of relative domesticity and newspaper deadlines).

But it all requires so much more energy than I currently possess… so, like a good little  girl, I’m going to tuck myself and my hang-ups into bed… right after I finish this bowl of Smarties.

For more from where that came from, check out Peta-Jo’s fabulous blog.

You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Oh…and don’t forget her hilarious book Wedding Ettiquette for Ferals. (More to come on Mums Lounge about this very soon!)