Milestone

We have reached a HUGE milestone here at the Welborn house. Lauren has sucked her thumb since about two weeks old. She never wanted a pacifier and would only suck her thumb. We knew this would be an issue when she grew older as far as quitting, but as we all know, Lauren is VERY strong-willed (even as an infant).

Well, we told her that when she was eight, she would have to stop. We even gave her the option to cut down at the time (about 4 months ago) or quit "cold turkey" on the day of her birthday. She chose the night of her birthday. That night we started with "Thum" which is a solution to coat her thumbnail. It is spicy and does not taste good at all. She did NOT like it. She even tried to snow Clark into painting the wrong thumb. (It only worked once!)

Lauren actually accused Clark of painting her tongue at one point. We tried really hard not to laugh at her. She was serious. We would catch her running to the nearest sink, followed by the sound of rapid spitting. Woe to anything that may have been in said sink at the time.

Tonight, however, we have reached the end. She has not tried to suck her thumb for several days and had not realized that we had not painted her thumb for several days as well. She is not feeling well and asked if she could suck her thumb just for tonight. I told her to give it a try and see how it felt. (with ulterior motives, knowing what would happen) She tried and took it out and tried again. It got really quiet and here's what happened:

Me: What's the matter?
Lauren: It does feel right.
Me: You don't want to suck it?
Lauren's Thumb: But I want her to suck me.
Lauren (through tears): It doesn't work anymore. I want to suck it, but my mouth has grown up but my thumb has grown down.
Me: I guess you don't need it anymore.
Lauren: Why didn't you put me on a pacifier or stop me earlier. This way I wouldn't remember it.

It was really hard not to feel sad with her at this point. We snuggled a bit and she ultimately did go to sleep.

Sometimes its hard to grow up and be a bigger guy..