I'm not sure what we're going to do about Evelyn's addiction. I'm pretty sure taking this away would be equivalent to taking away caffeine from my dad. You take that man's coffee away and you may as well try to enjoy an afternoon locked in a cage with a rabid grizzly. Believe me when I say this is not an exaggeration. Evelyn, it seems, has her own vice.
Thumb sucking.
My aunt is in her forties and still sucks her thumb. My youngest sister is in her mid twenties and also does this. I've heard some people will never outgrow it. There's always someone trying to say, when they see her doing it for the first time, "That'll make your teeth grow crooked." Evelyn, still not grasping the English language in all of its glory, ignores these small slights to her favorite pastime.
I've asked around for a cure. Everything short of the Betty Ford clinic, I fear, will fall short. There's bitter nail polish. There's mittens. Taping her hands together. Some, obviously, seem a bit extreme and others downright cruel. The nail polish never worked on my sister, either. She once told me she'd always sucked her thumb until the flavor ran out on the paint.
Its not that I'm opposed to thumb sucking. There are worse things my daughter could get in to. Tattoos of pink ponies. Become a milk-a-holic. Be one of those kids who likes to wear a diaper backwards. I don't know.
The moral of the story is, I really hope she stops sucking her thumb. If not, if that's the worst thing she ever does, I'll live and so will she.
