5/09/2010

Goodbye Thumb... NOT

On Sunday March 7, we wrapped Ruthie's thumb, told her her thumb-sucking days were over and cried with her. She stayed up late that night watching Baby Einstein because she couldn't fall asleep without her thumb. We did this same technique with Austin at the exact same age. He gave up the thumb after only 2 days. I thought Ruthie would be easier. For 2 solid weeks we wrapped her thumb. Every nap and bedtime she wailed for 20-60 minutes. This was extra hard to take since Ruthie has been soooo easy to put to bed her whole life. Chuck her in the crib with her thumb and her favorite blanket (in the picture) and she basically goes right to sleep. Without her thumb, she soon learned to suck on her finger, or fingers, or her hand or arm or other hand. What were we to do? Put her in an upper body cast?

So yeah, Ruthie won the battle. The wrappings ceased. The thumb returned. Sleep returned. And everyone lived happily ever after.

(We figure that when she's 3 or 4 we'll try to help her give up the thumb using sticker charts and all that good stuff).

Bits and Pieces

Some old old updates (super quick):

1. Austin has a cat. It doesn't belong to us. I don't have to change it's litter box. But he loves it like it was his very own (aka - sporadically). It belongs to our backyard neighbors and comes to visit every so often. Austin has named him "Filbert". It's either after Calliou's cat Gilbert, or Sid's dog Filbert - or both.
2. We went to Thanksgiving Point's Cornbellies in October (ancient news, yes). The kids loved it and I am totally planning on getting a membership for it this year.


3. I came in to my kitchen one day to discovery this.... Austin used the step stool to climb up the wall, to the fridge, to the cupboards, and eventually made his way in to the pantry. Hopefully he got in enough trouble to never do it again (but not before I could get a picture to remember how secretly proud I was of his bravery and skills).

4. We carpeted our living room in December. Love it! It has cut down on the echos in the house 10 fold. We roll around and wrestle on it pretty much daily. It has made our home so family friendly.


5. A month ago we wrapped up our singing group. We went every Wednesday for 6 months to Brie Frank's "Cherubs" group where we sang kids songs, played instruments, danced with puppets, and had fun. Pictured below is our Valentine's Day party.