The Lack of a Sucking Sound in My House - Well, It Can Suck

I know, I know.  I should be thanking my lucky stars and sticking my tongue out at all the dentists in town.  But I am not.  I really just wasn't ready for this.  I feel like her babyhood is slipping through my fingers and it makes me sad.

Mia stopped sucking her thumb. 

Just like that, easy peasy.  Well, there definitely was a series of events that led up to this historic moment.  If you need to figure out how to get your four year old to stop using her thumb this is what you do:

1.  Have her walk up a slide in Crocs that are too big for her over and over until she slips and falls and smacks her mouth on the slide.
2.  Make sure the fall is hard enough to move the tooth and makes it wiggly and definitely throw in a fat lip and some blood.
3.  Take her to the dentist and make sure she has a very healthy fear of "the chair", "the bubbles" (aka flouride), and "the pictures".  (This you need to work on years in advance to instill the proper level of hatred of the whole place.)
4.  Have the scary dentist whisk her away even though Mommy promised she would stay with her the whole time.
5.  Have the dentist make her cry, at least a little.
6.  Have the dentist scare her into thinking if she sucks her thumb ANYMORE her tooth will fall out.
7.  Make it hurt a little to suck her thumb.
8.  A couple of weeks later leave blankie at school overnight to truly break the blankie/thumb sucking in the middle of the night cycle.

Voila!  Now you have a four year old little girl who no longer sucks her thumb, at all.  She doesn't suck it during the day, she doesn't suck it to go to sleep, and as far as I can tell she doesn't suck it at night to go back to sleep.  This could be why she has been calling out for Mommy after any bad dream or when she wakes up, normally at 4am. 

Trust me, I was perfectly fine with the thumb sucking.

Oh, and to update you on the tooth.  It is definitely out of place, which apparantly is no big deal.  It has stopped changing color, so she won't have to get a new grill or have it pulled.  It just is slightly duller than her other pearly whites.  Gives her character.

Straight From the Dentist Some Really Bad Advice

Mia has given up her diapers and is close to giving up her crib.  Why oh why must she even consider giving up her thumb? 

Well, we went to the dentist today. 

Good news is both kids have great teeth, very pretty and healthy.  Both Jac and Mia did a great job with the cleaning, they both hated the fluoride (but who likes fluoride) and they both even talked to the doctor (in grunts and nods). 

Mia still freaks out that the chair moves.  It clearly cannot be trusted to support her 34 pounds because it can raise, lower and recline all at the push of a button.  It could collapse and send her careening to the floor in an instant!  I only had to hold her hand until she knew for sure that the chair was done moving.  And when I say hold her hand, which might be a bit understated.  She practically climbed up my arm while clinging with every other limb to the chair even though it had already stopped moving.   I had them recline the chair prior to her laying back and then when it was in position we helped her scoot up the chair.  You would have thought that we were asking her to shimmy out on a guy wire in between two 50 story buildings.  But she did it, with no crying.  And after she trusted the chair she was good.

Jac did great.  I think that by next visit he will be able to go by himself.  Such a big boy.  Although when asked what flavor toothpaste he wanted the hygienist rattled off all eight flavors and he just stared at her.  So she said, "Would you like Strawberry?"  And he simply nodded.  I am positive that strawberry would not have been his first choice. 

So, when the dentist was finished looking at the kids teeth she told me that they looked great.  But Mia's bite is out of whack and as far as the dentist is concerned the only way to get that mouth back into whack is to get the thumb out.  First of all, no.  She is three and a half and she is not going to be convinced to stop sucking her thumb.  Second of all, I may be mean mommy at times but I will not and I repeat WILL NOT put yucky stuff on her thumb so she won't suck on it.  That is cruel for her and for everyone else in the house who would then have to live with her while she can't sleep and she can't soothe herself.  Third and finally, I had really snaggly teeth when I was little.  I mean, they went every which way.  I had permanent teeth coming in behind baby teeth; I had to have one baby tooth removed.  I had crazy teeth as a kid, but at some point after all my baby teeth were gone they straightened out.  They aren't perfect or movie star teeth, but they are good.  Mia has my teeth exactly.  I am not spending a dime on teeth straightening until she gets all her permanent teeth. 

Here is the conversation on the way home.

"The dentist wants you to stop sucking your thumb." 

"Why, mommy?"

"She says that your teeth will come in crooked and you will have to wear braces someday."

"Are braces like bracelets for your teeth?" Jac pipes in.

"Yes, and they have to stay on a long time."

"How do they stay on, won't they fall off?"  Jac is interested.

"They use some sort of glue.  Mia, you don't have to stop sucking your thumb.  Big girls don't suck their thumbs, but you still need it and that is okay.  Maybe when you are four or five you can think about stopping." 

"Maybe when I am six, mommy."  (With the sound of sucking in the background, clearly we have hit a nerve.)

Seriously.  This is what my three year old said.  Maybe when I am six years old, which in toddler years is at least a decade.  What she really just said, was lay off, I will think about stopping when I am in my early 20s.