The magic Band-Aid

I think every mom (and/or teacher) knows that Band-Aids are second only to Mommy kisses when it comes to "curing" boo-boos. Band-Aids are great, of course, for cuts and scrapes that bleed or need a little protection, but even bumps and bruises can magically be cured with a Band-Aid. Band-Aid goes on and tears turn off. It really is like magic! Add your child's favorite character to it and you have something that's a mom's equivalent to a really good margarita at the end of a really long day! ;)

It turns out the Band-Aid just might be the "magical" cure to bad habits, too!

Drew has sucked his thumb since he was 2 months old (follow link for some adorable pictures!). I tried to get him to take a pacifier instead but he wouldn't take it. It was hard to argue with the ability to self-soothe, but I couldn't help but worry over his future teeth.

How can you argue with that??

I have, of course, done my research on when and how to break the habit. Most of what I've read says that children often fall out of the habit on their own between ages 2 and 4. Jason and I both laughed and agreed that wasn't fairly likely. I sucked my thumb until I was 8! I could easily see Drew doing the same. Thankfully he's not much of a public thumb-sucker, but it's how he calms himself when he's upset and how he falls asleep every night; it's completely subconscious and he's totally addicted!

Unfortunately the addiction is a STRONG addiction. Physically strong! I've read some children suck lightly causing minimal damage to their teeth. Others, however, can cause serious damage and even change the shape of their mouth. I hadn't noticed just how strongly he sucked until he recently got a somewhat deep cut on the back of his thumb, presumably from his bottom teeth. He had the cut for a few days and whined about it on and off, but actually got to the point that he wouldn't use that hand- I caught him trying to put toys away using his left hand and his right elbow!

Cue the Band-Aids!

The Band-Aid instantly helped. And when it gets wet and we have to take it off, Drew is practically helpless until we put a new one on. I wondered what was going to happen at bed time. Since he so desperately "needed" the Band-Aid, would he sleep with it and try to suck his thumb over it? Would he ask for the Band-Aid to be removed?

Well, last night he slept! I peeked in his room and there was so thumb-sucking! And in the morning the Band-Aid was totally dry. He woke once in the middle of the night crying; I went in to find out what was wrong and after a good deal of wailing he finally just said, "I don't know!". I kind of think he subconsciously wanted to suck his thumb and just didn't know what to do with himself. I asked if he wanted me to take off the Band-Aid and he said "no!" Nap time today: slept with the Band-Aid and no thumb! And, again, tonight, he has the Band-Aid so we'll see what happens.

I'm totally willing to buy stock in Band-Aids and play the charade with him if it helps to break the habit. As long as he keeps asking for a new one, I will be happy to wrap up that thumb in cute Sesame Street characters. Toddlers are stubborn. That is a well-known fact. If I try to do something with the intent of trying to stop the habit, it will totally backfire. BUT, this is "self inflicted". He actually wants (and seems to think he NEEDS) the Band-Aids. There's no fight!

My question is this: how many nights would you think it takes to break the habit? I remember just deciding to stop sucking my thumb one night; I put my hand under my pillow and that was it. I remember trying it again a little while later and realizing it already felt really strange to put my thumb in my mouth. How many nights of sleeping without it do you think it will take before it seems "foreign" and strange? Is it likely this could actually be the end? At what point do I worry he'll try sucking his thumb anyway and choke on a Band-Aid? ;)

Best way to start the day

Yes, those are his toes, and yes, he's that flexible. Watching the video has me cringing because, man, that looks like it hurts! Obviously he finds it quite amusing so it mustn't, but don't you just wish you still had that kind of flexibility??

5 months!

I've got my eye on you!

Mommy is such a ham with that silly toy on her head!

Toes are pretty great

Rolling and grabbing my toes: it's what I do best

You know I'm cute

Everything goes in my mouth, even my own shirt!

My other baby during the "photo shoot". Wish he were feeling better :(

Move aside Jonas brothers

(Or Hanson brothers if you're my age)



I do realize it is not Monday, but you know how it is trying to get back to normal after being out of town. Add to that a child who has been throwing up for two days, and you'll no longer care what day it is. This was my much-needed cuteness today. Excuse Drew's mismatching outfit- the button down shirt is my solution for having to do less loads of laundry when you have a two-year-old who can't seem to aim for a trash can very well (it's a good thing he still pees sitting down!). Thankfully, as you can tell, he seems to be feeling a bit better and kept down 1/4 cup of chicken broth and 1 saltine this evening. Seems like nothing, but it's more than he's had in the previous 36 hours.

Also, more cuteness:

Life according to me

It's been a while since I've written a wordy post about what we're up to these days. So here's the scoop:

Me: I'm doing all right. Sometimes I feel like I'll never quite get the hang of this, but we're getting there.  Mothers of more than two: how on earth do you do it!? Currently I'm out of work until the end of April. I'll only be back to work for about a month before summer vacation. I'm hoping I can use this time (and summer after) to get myself back to baseline. Stacey and I have been back to running. I initially started running after Drew was born as a way to help increase lung function and bone density (did you know running helps with that?), so I'm back at it with the same goals in mind. In order to make sure we DO IT, though, we did a couple of things: a) we've picked a race to train for, b) we made sure we have jogging strollers for all 3 kiddos so we can run even if the hubbies are at work, and c) we bought rain covers for the strollers so we have NO EXCUSES! (That's our motto now!)

[Picture to come... I swear I'm going to get a picture of us and the kiddos and strollers!]

Drew: He is developing more and more of an imagination and starting to enjoy playing by himself a bit now. I'll be busy cooking dinner or washing dishes and I'll hear him in the other room making up conversations between inanimate objects (usually cars). I'll tell ya' that it can be pretty horrifying to hear "yourself" acted out by your two-year-old son. :-/ Drew is also completely enthralled with his little brother. He comes up with a new nickname for him on a daily hourly basis. Today's nicknames included brownie (because he was wearing brown), kicky, ditty (?), and... oh there were so many I can't remember. He always says, "hi, [insert nickname]" then says "now you say 'hi, [insert nickname] to him!". He also is pretty much constantly in James' face making loud nonsense noises (again- seeing myself from my two-year-old's point of view). I've recently been telling Drew he can actually say words to James; he doesn't always have to spew silly sounds at him. Below is a video of Drew making noises at James.



James: James is getting better at rolling onto his tummy, and though he has rolled back over a handful of times (and just recently did a few rolls in the same direction moving himself across the floor), he has yet to master the reversal skills, so we're in the phase of short naps and nighttime waking because he'll roll himself onto his tummy then wake up MAD! We got a few giggles out of him a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't heard them again recently. I seem to remember this strange trend with Drew of learning a new skill then temporarily forgetting it only to rediscover it again. I'm certainly impatient to get those laughs back- baby laughs cure everything! The video below isn't laughs, but he is still pretty darn adorable!



Jason: He has a new job! This was an answer to prayers. We were both tired of the varying schedule and the late nights and weekend hours that came with his job at the golf course, so Jason had been looking around for something new. As luck would have it (or as God would have it, I should say), Jason accepted a job offer to do telecommunications/engineering/computer-aided-design work and was going to start this past Monday; he showed up to find out that someone was supposed to have contacted him (and another guy who was there) to let them know that they weren't supposed to come in until Wednesday. That same night Jason got a call with an offer to do the same work but for more money, and completely from home (with the company he's done contract work for for years)! Talk about God working in our lives! Jason felt bad walking away from the first job after having accepted the position, but he made a better choice for our family. Spring was always really hard for us with his late hours (due to later sunset) and my early ones- we barely got an hour together before I would have to head to bed- so things should be a bit easier now when I head back to work. Our biggest issue will be finding ways to keep the kiddos from distracting him when they're home since we don't have an actual room for his office- just an open room that's supposed to be a sitting/formal living room.

Two of my sweeties

That's life according to me right now! Come back for more!

Flashback Friday: My baby can read!

The other morning Jason carried Drew downstairs, plopped him on the sofa next to me, handed him a book, and said, "read it to Mommy!". Drew "read" a page of his book to me; I smiled and said, "good job!" then Jason said, "keep going!". Drew proceeded to "read" the entire book to me. It's not the first time he's memorized phrases/pages of books, but I was shocked that he had the WHOLE thing memorized! I looked at Jason and asked if he'd been working on that with Drew and he said, "no! I walked into his room and heard him reading it! I turned the page and he kept going!".



As always happens, he doesn't do nearly as good of a job once he knows the cameras are rolling, but I caught the gist of it anyway. It's not a complicated or lengthy book, and he's obviously working from memory/pictures (and the rhyming helps too), but even so, that boy's memory is going to get him places!  And, if I remember correctly (funny how I have a horrible memory, but Drew seems to have an amazing one), I believe memorization is one of the first steps in learning to read.

It just so happens that in the process of uploading the above video I came across this video from almost exactly a year ago! (This video was taken on 2/28/2012 and the above video was taken on 2/27/2013!)



I can't believe how much he's changed in a year!! With the amount he talks it feels like he's been talking in sentences for years already (and he's only 2 years old!)! Boy... we gotta slow down!

Seriously, I'm just remembering... Did I tell you Drew can spell, too? He was typing on my laptop and I was calling out letters while he typed them. I've taught him to "spell" Mommy, Daddy, and Drew, so I was calling out the letters then having him tell me what word he spelled. Then I asked him to spell James. I sounded out the "j" sound and Drew hesitated for a moment then hit the J, then I made the "a" sound (that one's easy of course) and he hit A, then I said "mmmm" and Drew again hesitated then typed M! I spelled out E and S for him, but I couldn't believe he got that far! Of course, since then he's been saying "Buh... buh.... James!". It doesn't quite work that way....