He Did It!!

Major congratulations go to Nate... he successfully went an entire month without sucking his thumb at nighttime! Woohoo! Yes, I realize a 7 year old should be past this stage. He was a thumb sucker as a baby (... as was Ben, but Ben dropped it on his own prior to his 1 year birthday), and Nate just continued with it. These past number of years he only did it at nighttime, and occasionally riding in the car or sitting and watching a show on TV. The daytime habits we could call him on - it was the nighttime that we weren't around to ask him to stop. Well, we've tried half-heartedly to work on this bad habit for a couple of years now. We'd try something for a little while, then it would fade and we'd be back in our old routine. Well, a couple of months ago one of Nate's top front teeth started to get loose. So we knew, NOW was the time! I made up a month-long chart and we put it on the fridge. At nighttime we put a special glove on his hand. It was just a kids garden glove, but we'd cut off the four fingers of his glove so he still had use of his fingers, and left the thumb of the glove intact, hoping that the feel of a gloved thumb in his mouth would deter him from sucking it when he went to sleep. Know, too, that Nate was behind this himself, 100%. Each morning he woke up with his glove on, he'd get to put a star on the chart on that day. After each week of complete stars, he'd get a little prize - like something from the dollar store. Well, we told him that if he could make it four weeks straight without sucking, he'd get a big prize. And he did it!! He was SO into this big reward... each morning the first thing he did was mark off his star. Then over the past couple of weeks, he'd talk about what kind of big prize he was going to pick out. So the big day happened this past weekend - we went shopping. He knew the budget we'd given him, and he had quite the time looking through everything that fit within that dollar amount. But he ended up picking a race track. And it's been the toy of the week! The kids have all loved playing with it. It's quite a doozy, as it hangs off the doorway and the track goes way out into the room. But the kids, particularly Nate, think it's great. And we're very proud of him for his determination in overcoming this bad habit. Now, if we could just work on Karis' nightitme habit..... :)