I've been fretting about Charlotte's attachment to her thumb.  It was great when she could soothe herself in the carseat or in the middle of the night, but it's done a number on her bottom teeth, and I wanted it out before she pushed them in to the point where the dentist was concerned.  (Since she has her daddy's "significant overbite" (the dentist's words,) only a little of it can be blamed on the thumb.)

How to get her to stop?  I made inroads in some areas - no thumb during stories, making her talk to me in the car in the morning, things like that.  Unfortunately, she caught on to the fact that I had caught on that the thumb went in if she was tired or upset, and I was fairly okay with that.  So whenever she'd pop it in from boredom and I called her on it, "But I'm tiiiiiiired mommy."  One afternoon in a fit of frustration, we got home and I informed her that if she was so tired that she needed to suck her thumb, she clearly needed to go upstairs and lay down in bed.  NOW.  She went.  She was upstairs for ten minutes or so, and came down unplugged.  Hmmm.

So I told her that it was okay if she wanted to suck her thumb, but she could only do it in bed.  That was that.  She plugs it in at night after stories, and other than that - it's out.  I should have done that months and months ago.

(I did give her an exemption earlier in the week when she was sick.  It just seemed mean not to.)

Next step - the potty chair is going to "disappear" while we're at Pennsic.  She uses a full sized toilet everywhere but at home - why are we still cleaning up that mess?