Girls Just Wanna Have Thumb: April 14, 2013

Here's wishing you a pleasant morning! Ours are pretty cheerful, except that one little girl is having a hard week.

At three months of age, Carrie found her thumb and it was love at first suck.  Since Mommy was pretty busy putting two little girls to bed every night, she let it happen.  Carrie would turn over on her tummy and find her thumb, sucking contentedly away to dreamland without the hour-plus routine that Melina required.

It even became one way we could tell them apart. Carrie sucked her thumb, Melina did not.

It was her way of calming herself.  It helped her get through her first fireworks display.

...and through her first extended photoshoot at one year old....

... and even through her first Disney vacation last month.

Sadly, we decided to bring that to an ed this week.

This is why.  Carrie always preferred her right thumb, never her left.  She sucked so much that it was always damp.  At night, her teeth would chew on her thumb while she slept.  Lately, we noticed swelling and redness on her thumb, and some pretty angry looking patches where she chewed herself into blisters.

I showed it to a nurse friend of mine, who agreed with me that it was time to break the habit.  Any more irritation and she could get a serious infection.  Now right before naptime Carrie's beloved Fum gets an Epsom Salt soak and a coat of Neosporin.

Carrie and Melina have to get their Gucks on at naptime anyway to keep them from climbing out of their cribs.  The feet are sewn together to keep them from climbing.  Carrie's got one more modification this week: one sleeve is sewn shut to keep her from sucking.

She tried anyway.

It didn't work.

I think she eventually realized what we were after, and it made her a little sad.  She and Fum have had a good run together.

The first nap was hard. She was still awake and fussy long after Devon had fallen asleep. That never happens.

Poor baby girl.

Melina, always my empathetic one, stepped in to help.  Soon the fussing stopped and I heard talking in their room.  I peeked in to see them scooched up near each other in the cribs, facing each other and talking to keep calm.  They eventually fell asleep that way.

Carrie's mood has been a little flat, but we know she can get through this.  Every time her mouth opens and Fum approaches, I say "Big Girl, Big Girl!" and she stops.  Sometimes it makes her cry.

In the car, Carrie sits in the middle seat so Devon can keep an eye on her.  "The girl is NOT sucking!" he says.

We went to the zoo this weekend.  Carrie was scared of the giraffe, although she eventually let Mommy feed it while holding her.  She didn't even need Fum to get through it.  Just Mommy, Daddy, Devon, and her best friend Melina.