Pacifier Appreciation

My son has been a pacifier fan since way back. When he was born he had to spend 3 days in neonatal intensive care because my water had been broken for too long. They started giving him a pacifier there, when they would start his IV . I wasn't happy about it, but how can you argue with a cranky NICU nurse who says, "It is comforting him, but if you don't want that, we wont give it to him." I always said that when his top teeth started coming in, (they have not yet) I would start weaning him from it. I am starting to think that will be easier said than done. When he was an infant my mom and I had what we would call "Pacifier Appreciation" he would cry, we would give him the pacifier, and if you didn't physically hold it in his mouth, he would spit it out and the crying would begin all over again. So I would take it away, hoping that he would "appreciate" it more when he got it back. Now, it make no sense to me whatsoever, because I am a more informed mommy. The pacifier was too large. It was a size for a six month old, and I didn't know it. Hell, I didn't know they made them in sizes until I had to buy a replacement set and found out all along the darn thing was too big for his mouth during those days of Pacifier Appreciation . Eventually, he grew into the pacifier (which around my house is called a Bzaza, the Arabic word for it. Actually, it is the Arabic word for bottle, but hey, I don't speak Arabic and it stuck. It is pronounced as it looks--bZA-ZA) As I was saying, I think weaning him from bzaza is going to be hard. Today it really hit home when I noticed the baby taking a few leisurely steps crawling, stop, and sit, pull his bzaza out of his mouth and look at it. He looked at thing with such love. He would turn it over and over, and kind of wave it around a little, then put it back in his mouth. I observed this about three times today. Then fear struck in my heart.....My son graduating college, walking across the stage at graduation, taking his diploma from an important looking faculty member, and turning to wave at his father and I. Stuck in his mouth is his favorite baby blue bzaza.
Yikes, somebody is going to have issues with this for sure. I think it is probably going to be me.