Soothing

Sometime after her forth birthday and the arrival of her little sister, Elsie's teeth changed.  They shifted quickly, opening up and angling out right in the front of her mouth.  On a hunch, I crept into her bedroom at night.  There she slumbered soundly, thumb firmly in mouth.

The next day, I asked her gently, "Elsie, have you been sucking your thumb?"  She is old enough to understand that she shouldn't be sucking her thumb, mature enough not to do it in public, but not old enough to lie about it.

"Yes."  She said simply.

At her second year checkup, Elsie's pediatrician had assured me that most kids stop sucking their thumbs on their own.  Besides, I didn't even have to worry about it until four or so, at which point it would devastate her palate and ruin her face in ways only thousands of dollars worth of braces and surgery could possibly fix.  But no worries!  Preschool would cure her.  Peer pressure, you know.

But Elsie didn't stop on her own, nor when she entered preschool.  Yes, she hated being type-cast as the baby at preschool, but she still loved sucking her thumb.  As she approached three, we ran a big household quitting campaign that included pretty nail polish, yucky-tasting top-coat, sticker chart, and a carrot on the end of a string.

"Gold beads!" It was.  Beads.  I was ready to offer her any toy in the world, and what she wanted was beads.  I told her I would buy her as many gold beads as she wanted if she stopped sucking her thumb for a month -- or was it two?  She did it.  Weeks upon weeks of daily stickers marked the accomplishment.  I took her to a bead store and let her go wild.  Her favorite?  The cheapest thing in the shop.  A big bowl of misfit beads, 10 cents a scoop.  We strung miles of necklaces that year.  The spoils of kicking a bad habit.

Just like all of my worst habits, the cure was temporary.

I sighed, and launched into an explanation about orthodontics.  She stared at me blankly, blinking a few times.  Eventually it dawned on her: I was asking her to stop sucking her thumb.

Her bottom lip quivered.  Tears welled in her eyes and flowed over.  She begged me, please, please do not ask this.  Anything, just not the thumb.

There, right there, I felt it -- that uncomfortable, inevitable moment in parenting, the moment of intense caring and utter not-knowing.  I didn't know what to do.  I didn't know what was best.  I thought of how much she loved her thumb.  I remembered that look, the jolt of soothing hormone that washes across her face when she sucks.  I wanted to let her keep that.  I thought of the way I pick my cuticles, and felt like a hypocrite.  I thought of her palate, of dentist scrutiny and orthodontist bills.  I thought of how much I hated my braces for the four years I wore them, how uncomfortable they were.  Then I thought of a friend, the youngest of three, an adult now, asking her mom at Thaksgiving this year, "Why did you let me suck my thumb until I was 13!?"  As though it was ever her mom's thumb to control in the first place.

For better or worse, I stuck to my guns.  I offered a new carrot.  A new sticker chart.  Any color of new nail polish she wanted.  Nothing budged her.

I remembered a particular toy Elsie had noticed in a catalog a week earlier.  Now, in the holiday-wasteland of summer, she wanted this toy.  It was too costly an item to just buy on a whim, and covered all over with Disney Princess so I told her, "If you still want it at your birthday, then that is what I will get for you." Half-hoping she'd forget all about it by November, but knowing that Elsie has a very long attention span.

"What about the Ariel Duplo?" I asked her.  "You go a month without sucking your thumb once, and we will buy the Ariel Duplo." 

That did it.  Her face brightened and she set her jaw with determination and nodded.  

****

Now I have a four year old who doesn't suck her thumb.  She plays with her Little Mermaid building set every day since she earned it.  All is well until bed time, when it takes her up to two hours to sing and talk and fidget herself to sleep. 

Meanwhile, Lucia passes out cold in a few minutes as soon as she finds her bink.