Sucka

My daughter is cursed in that she comes from a long line of Young-family thumb suckers. Libba, Will and I all sucked our thumbs. My Mom even admits that she sucked her thumb until a ridiculous age. She was so nervous we would carry on the tradition that she bribed me in the second-grade. Brooke, she said, if you go a whole week without sucking your thumb, I’ll get you a Barbie. And Libba, never the one to pass up a deal, totally quit cold-turkey so she could rake in a doll too. Of course she was done for good, while I still snuck a few thumb sucks now and then for a few years after. Just another example of my baby sister excelling in something far beyond me.

I thought Taylor would bypass the thumb sucking due to her LOVE of the binky. Not the case. She’s now prone to spitting out the pacifier and greedily devouring her fingers, drooling all over her hands and her outfit in the process. It’s an obsession now. I try to remove her slobbery digits and reinsert the binky, but all she‘ll do is spit out the plastic and go for the real thing. People will say, Oh, she's discovered her hands. Well, yes, if DISCOVER means shoving them so far into her mouth that sometimes she gags. Is there a Baby Bulimics Anonymous hotline I should be contacting?