We bought Katherine a pacifier. Nuk; size 0 to 3 months.

Sorry to blurt it out like that, but there just didn't seem to be any other way to say it. This isn't one of those things that you can euphemize.

I had been holding out; "a pacifier," I told Kevin, would "confuse her." And us. How would we know when she was really hungry, and when she just wanted something to to sooth her? And how would she know when to let the pacifier go and cry for real food? Would she starve? Or, to be a little less extreme, would she not gain weight the way she should? And did she really need one? Pacifism, I knew, was fraught with uncertainties.
 
Kevin had no such reservations. He thought it would be very useful for the times when she didn't need food, but ate anyways, and then threw everything up. He called me from work. "Do you want me to pick one up on my way home?"
I, lost in my world of uncertainties, made difficulties about the choosing. "You have to get one that won't make her teeth grow crooked. Not one of the cheap ones."
"I'll let you get one, then." said Kevin. (Phew!)
He continued. "Tomorrow, when you go to town."
Oh.

As it happened, I didn't have a chance to make it to the store, tomorrow. Or the next time. But finally, yesterday, I bought one. Katherine has a cold, and Kevin was very persuasive about how a pacifier would keep her throat less dry. So there it was.
But even after I had it, I kept it in the package. "It needs to be sterilized," I told Kevin when he asked about it. "People usually sterilize the soother when it's their first baby."
But I couldn't hold out forever.
Today, when I had to get ready to go out and Katherine wasn't happy, I got out the soother (yes, and boiled it for 5 minutes), and gave it to her. And, of course, she loved it. Settling down with great contentment, Katherine enjoyed her soother. And when I brought her out to the van, she popped it out of her mouth, finished with it for the moment, letting me know that she wasn't dependent on it for survival.
Not yet, anyways.

I think I'm paranoid in my mothering. I'm afraid to feed her every hour, because I worry that I'll help her develop bad eating habits. I'm afraid to rock her to sleep, because she might become dependent on rocking. I'm afraid to allow the house to be perfectly quiet as she sleeps, because she might get out of the habit of sleeping anywhere.
The pacifier has taken me down a road of self-discovery, showing me that I borrow trouble for the future.  I've been unable to simply accept the good of the present time without worrying. Which is so silly. "Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof."

And now, I'm wondering if I do this in other areas of life, too.