When I was little I sucked my thumb. My parents tried everything to get me to stop and nothing would work. They painted this nasty stuff on my finger, sort of like nail polish and I learned to peel it off or suck it anyway. Needless to say, I sucked my thumb until I was in the SECOND GRADE! Seven Years Old! People, that is just embarrassing. It came to the point that I would get in trouble for sucking my thumb. So, in the second grade, my parents stopped homeschooling me and put me in a little private school about an hour away from home. Then my dad would drive about an hour back to work. SO, I’m thinking, I’m good and safe way away from home, I’ll just suck my little ole thumb. It wasn’t like all day long or anything, just when I would get tired or sad or whatever. Well after lunch we would always have story time in class. They would turn off the lights and read to us and we could rest or whatever. I sat on the back row and was going about my day, sucking my thumb, and I catch a glimpse of my dad in the doorway, looking in my class. I felt like shriveling up and dying. What was he doing there in the middle of the day???? Why did he have to see me suck my thumb??? I knew I was busted.
So after school that day, I was a talk-a-haulic. I didn’t want my dad to have a breath to bring up the thumb-sucking sighting, so I talked and talked. Well finally I ran out of things to say, and the dooming words that I dreaded came out, “Lindsay, I saw you sucking your thumb today.” Rewind back to the shriveling feeling. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get in trouble, but that was all it took and I was done sucking my thumb forever. That put the fear of God in me.
Fast-forward 19 years ahead, and I’m driving down the road. I get to a light and decide to peek around and talk to Ella (Pres is conked and Hayden is in the far back doing her own thing) I turn around to see Ella, sucking her BIG TOE like no other! Let’s just hope we can nip that in the bud before Kindergarten graduation.
This is my norm 