When Blondie sets her mind to something...

I've wanted to post this blog entry for some time but I have really struggled to come up with a good title for it...

Blondie has been a dedicated 2-finger sucker since she was just a month or two old. It has always been her first two fingers on her left hand and is usually accompanied with a blanket held under her nose. Her first blanket ended up in shreds about a year ago so we found a replacement that she was willing to try out. It took a little while to break the new one in but then she was hooked once again. When Blondie was getting closer to kindergarten age I started gradually trying to get her to not suck her fingers so much - but fingers are harder to take away than a pacifier. Whenever we would sit down to watch some T.V. or to read a book, in would go the fingers. I started getting after her more and more whenever I saw her doing it but I didn't try too hard to get her to break completely before school started.

Then about a month ago the kids were watching T.V. and I realized that Blondie didn't have her fingers in her mouth! I started thinking back a little and realized that I hadn't seen her sucking on her fingers in a while. So I asked her if she sucked her fingers anymore and she said that she had stopped! I asked M&M later if she had seen Blondie sucking her fingers recently and she said, "no". About a week or two after this happened I was at the school and I asked her kindergarten teacher if she had ever seen Blondie sucking on her fingers and she said, "no".

So somehow, on her very own, Blondie stopped sucking her fingers! I was truly amazed when I watched her for a few days after she told me she had stopped and I didn't see her once sticking her fingers in her mouth. When I told DH about this he was also amazed and couldn't remember the last time he had seen her sucking on those fingers. (She did admit to me a couple of days ago that one night when she went to bed she put her fingers into her mouth before she remembered that she had quit doing that!)

This is the most recent picture I can find of Blondie sucking her fingers (and notice the blanket next to her nose). I didn't like to take pictures of her sucking on her fingers. This one was taken on Father's Day in June.

My husband has remarked that he thinks Blondie might have a little bit of his Grandma White's drive in her. From stories that I have heard of Grandma White, whenever she set her mind to something, she got it done. Blondie is like this in more than just this instance of quitting the finger sucking. When it is lunchtime and I'm not quick enough at making her lunch, Blondie will go and try and fix something herself. Also, if she is trying to ask me if she can do something or have something and I am busy and taking my time in responding to her, she will just go and take my non-response as a "yes" and help herself to whatever it is. I think it is awesome that Blondie has this drive in her, but I will definitely have to keep a close eye on her - especially as she gets older...