This post corresponds to the Momic chapter: “Pacifiers (Part 1)” You can read it on Webtoon here.

Pacifier. Dummy. Binky. Whatever you call it Babies have a lot of them. My son received his first before he was even born.

When I was 4 months pregnant the holiday season was in full-swing. I had just arrived home from school for winter break when I dropped the pregnancy bomb on my parents. I was barely showing, but the knowledge that a new life was growing within me was impossible to ignore.

My family has used the same Christmas stockings for over ten years. we even have one for the dog! So, on one mother-daughter trip to target i purchased a mini-stocking for my unborn son, and hung it above my own; an acknowledgement of his existence to the world and myself.

On christmas day a lone present sat in the stocking. It barely fit, teetering precariously over the edge. My son’s first official gift in life. Unwrapping it revealed a Tommee Tippee pacificer.

During my pregnancy I collected a multitude of Pacifiers, so the christmas gift from my parents was all but forgotten, shoved into a lonely drawer corner. I all but forgot about it…until one recent crying-filled night.

I dug out the pacifier from the abyss and desperately shoved it into my son’s mouth. Within seconds he went back to sleep and the crying session from hell was over. As i prepared to go back to bed, a faint glow caught my attention.

it was the pacifier. In fact, as it turns out, it was a glow-in-the-dark pacifier. Product designers never cease to impress me.