to choot or not to choot

chinese: choot choot
english: pacifier aka pacie
me: binkie

2 weeks after Toby was born, we had a debate as of whether he should get a binkie.. A few concerns like
a) nipple confusion
b) dependency on it for... MANY years??
c) if not binkie then thumb where the habit would be harder to break? Vy the way, he has attempted thumbsucking from time to time with great enthusiasm but has been quite unsuccessful as he hasn't come to the understanding as of how to fully control his hands
d) having to wear braces due to bad teeth formation contributed by binkie usage

Most of our concerns stem from experience. Namely.. me.

I loved sucking a binkie til I was.. 4-5? Not too sure of the age but I do remember my popo giving me 10c (or was it 20c) to buy the cheapo binkie from the indian shop (Uncle Samad!) at the bottom of our flat when my mum goes off to work. My uncles who live to tease me would sometimes suddenly shout, "Mummy's coming!" (even though she's not..) and laugh at me as I quickly pull my binkie out of my mouth and try to hide it somewhere. My dear mummy has thrown many binkies during my time..

Anyways, out of sheer desperation (on my part), we decided to get him his very own blue binkies! Just so that I can have time to actually go about doing things aside from being a walking, talking binkie.

 One of his binkies

Two weeks into it, all worries (as stated above) were gone. He seems to dislike it very much but there have been a few occassions where we managed to get him to suckle on it. Briefly. He has even managed to whack it right into the trash can once. I can truly say that he knows the difference between his binkie and me very well. Am having very mixed feelings about his reaction. Half of me is upset that he rejected his binkie while the other half is very thankful. Oh well, I guess I just have to suck it up and be his walking, talking binkie, along with many other titles and just see how it goes.