Oral Fixations

Okay. I must admit that I get it. I get the whole oral fixation thing that kids and some adults seem to have. I love to have a snack or to sip a Coke or a cup of coffee. After all, I usually have to heat up my cup of coffee 3 times by the time I finish it since I sip it so slowly throughout the morning to make it last and I can’t stand lukewarm coffee. I even still bite my nails during times of stress, so I get it. Stuff in mouth = feel better.

When Sarah was a baby, she was pretty addicted to her binky. She got rid of it about a month after Bethany was born, so she was 2 years & 4 months old. The one she liked was broken, so it didn’t work and she threw it in the garbage. That was that.

Then came Bethany. She was our thumb-sucker. You know how pregnant moms always say they saw their kids are sucking their thumbs in the womb on the ultrasound? They go on and on about how cute that is? Well, I hate to break it to you ladies, but that is really bad news. I never saw Bethany suck her thumb on an ultrasound, but she came out sucking it and she was very addicted to it for a very long time. We really tried to give her a binky, but she gagged every time. I have to admit, when she cried during the night, I sure was happy to not be crawling around on the floor under the crib in the dark hoping to grasp a binky. We just waited for her to stick her thumb in her mouth and went back to sleep! She sucked her left thumb, and the “experts” say that usually a child sucks the thumb of her dominant hand. When Bethany began to hold crayons and draw, she started with her left hand. Then she figured out she couldn’t suck her thumb and draw at the same time, so she did what any brilliant child would do. She became right-handed.

Becca liked her binky and I know she still had it when Elise was born, but I don’t really remember how she gave it up. Maybe my mom could remind me. I think I was still adjusting to having four kids at that moment in time and I didn’t have my blog then. Even though I have scrapbooks from those days, I don’t think I recorded the process of losing the binky.

All this to say…Elise is binky-free! She’s always loved her binky, but this past Christmas break she was totally addicted to it. I was about going nuts because she needed it

all. the. time.

So, after we got back into the routine when break was over, I limited the binky to night time. That was pretty easy. Recently, I found a half-broken binky and got a little freaked out by the possibility of her sucking the plastic off the binky and lodging it in her throat. And then I watched “SuperNanny” while Ed was gone to his work conference and she was taking away the binkies from a set of 4-year-old twins. I was inspired. I plucked that binky right out of Elise’s mouth right then and there! She slept great that whole night, so I was very pleased. I put that binky on her dresser, next to another one.

The next night, I didn’t know how it was going to go, but we talked during the day about giving her binky to baby Katie and that she could have a present if she would be a big girl and not have her binky anymore. When bed time came along, she was super upset and really wanted that binky! Trouble was…we couldn’t find one anywhere! I still do not know where those two binkies disappeared to! So, we had one pretty difficult night, with a lot of waking up and crying and all that and most nights since she has just a little trouble settling down, but then once she does get to sleep, she hasn’t been waking up…So…

Bye Bye Binky!

(I found this one in the van, so I took a picture. This is the one I will give my parents when they watch the girls this weekend, but I have instructed them to only give out the binky in a dire emergency…as in…she’s throwing up because she doesn’t have it or something like that.)

And HELLO Big Girl Present!

It’s a “Littlest Pet Shop” doggie. Notice how she’s got it near her mouth? She’s either kissing it or using it as an oral-fixation-binky-substitute.

Tuesday ended up to be a sunny day, despite the bitterly cold wind. Whenever it’s sunny, the girls get so hot on the bus ride home, so I made one of their favorite after-school-treats yesterday:

RASPBERRY ITALIAN SODAS!

See the straws? They love straws. What kid doesn’t? It’s just more oral-fixation-issues-which-shall-require-extensive-counseling-at-some-point-in-their-life, don’t you think?