Comfortably Thumb

This is a bit awkward, but it is time for us to go public with this and let you know that we have a fairly serious affliction in our house: Thumb-sucking. One of our children has been at it for a long, long time--9 years!--while the other is a more recent convert to the cult of thumb-suckers--a mere 3-year veteran. Obviously, we have known for a long time that we would have to confront this issue at some point--certainly the pediatrician and dentist have "encouraged" us over many visits--and help them break their habit, but there are two things that you should know:

1. We commit to these projects only gradually (read when we have no choice). Why that is, I am not sure, but it certainly seems to be our nature. For example, Andrew did not potty train until he was much older; but in that case we felt justified in waiting, as it did not seem proper or fair to ask him to potty train when he was hooked up to IV fluids. Setting that example aside, though, we did not teach Lucia how to ride a bike until she was 7 and we have no such explanation for that, we just never prioritized it (which is stunning and sad, considering how much I love bikes and cycling). In fact, Andrew does not know how to ride a bike still. He still gets around on his push bike, which is meant for a 2-year-old! It is a slightly different situation to Lucia, though (she did not have a push bike), as we do encourage him to ride his regular bike, but he just looks at us--with a fair amount of condescension--and says, Why would I bother to ride that when I can go just as fast on my push bike without all the hassle? Which is true. And for which we have no good answer. Yet. Give us time though....

And:

2. Our children are thumb junkies.

Nonetheless, a recent check-up with the dentist reminded us--once again--that the thumb-sucking really must go and now is the time. So, we conducted our intervention and have embarked on behavior modification of our children and are on Day 3 of The Program a/k/a Operation No Lisp. You may be wondering--as the sense of grim reality settles in--what kind of draconian tools and methods are involved in The Program? We won't go into too much detail here--Social Services and all--but let's just say that it involves a fair amount of surgical tape and some fairly large bribes. So far, so good, though tonight we started to see some regression as the desperation cracked through. The thumb, it seems, is a powerful, powerful drug....

To defend ourselves a bit, we do want to go on record and let you know that we did try to break Lucia of this habit previously, but crashed and burned and, consequently, aborted the mission. We were told to invest in the Thumb Guard--a device that straps onto your wrist and houses your thumb in a plastic sleeve--and have her wear it at bedtime (when she is most prone to thumb-sucking) and that this would have her free of her nightly thumb-fix in no time. There were two problems, however: The first was that Lucia's thumb in that sleeve was like Houdini in the shackled chest--total escape artist!; the second was that--once we had troubleshot the first and strapped the Thumb Guard on extra tight, so that there were no more escapes--she simply ate it! Yep, literally gnawed through that sleeve like a gerbil and rewarded herself with...wait for it...a good long thumb-suck! Lucia, 1; Thumb Guard, 0.

So, we took a hiatus. A long hiatus. But, now we are back and determined. From what we can tell, Andrew will be the easy one. For one, he is not a "natural" thumb-sucker. In truth, he only picked it up after watching his sister. For another, Andrew is really motivated by his desire for toys, so rewards work really well on him. He has already told us that he would like a Lego set and a cap gun (thank you, Noah) as his prizes once he stops--an absolute bargain versus orthodontia and speech therapy. Lucia, on the other hand, will be the real challenge. In her case, she is a lifelong thumb-sucker--it is totally instinctual to her. But, to make matters worse (and I can't believe that I am about to write this, but...), she is not motivated by "stuff"--not toys, not games, not clothes, not jewelry.... I'm sure we will come up with some prize to keep her committed, but at this point, we have no idea what that is and she has not given an indication. All I can say is, it had better not be a pony. If so, we might just take the braces and the therapy instead!

Wish us luck!

Paul & Cynthia