Back to the drawing board

Nearly three weeks ago CoCo stopped stucking her thumb. Cold turkey.

Truth be told, I bribed her.
Knowing Uncle Andrew was coming to town for Thanksgiving, I told the girls Uncle Andrew wanted to take them to see a movie at the theater. The catch was, they could only go if they quit sucking their thumbs.

As soon as I spelled out the deal, Coryn quit. No more popping in the thumb on a car ride, when she was upset or even to fall asleep at nap and bedtime. Sure, she was a bit more irritable and whiney because she didn't have her automatic soothe reflex to fall back on, but at least she was holding fast to keeping her thumb out.

Jo, on the other hand, was trying to quit, but having trouble. More often than not, I'd catch Jo with a thumb in her mouth and have to remind her about the movie deal. CoCo would chastise her big sister saying, "I don't suck my thumb anymore. That's for babies."

While Uncle Andrew was in town for Thanksgiving we went to see the new Muppet movie at Mayfair. The girls aren't really familiar with the Muppet characters, but the song and dance routines quickly won them over.

We brought Jo along for the movie, even though she hadn't completely quit. I didn't have the heart to take CoCo and not Jo (I know that was bad on my part).

Uncle Andrew came up with the idea of making a star chart for Jo. Pop Pop TG helped her draw ten boxes on a piece of paper. She could fill one box for every whole day and night she kept her thumb out. Once she had 10 stars Jo could pick a special outing of her own. That was last weekend. So far she has two stars.

This week, out of the blue CoCo started up again with sucking her thumb. In the car, to fall asleep or when she wasn't getting her way. I was utterly shocked. It had been two solid weeks of no thumb sucking for Cokes. I thought we had conquered the beast.

Me: Why are you sucking your thumb?!?!
Coryn: Mom, we already saw the movie with Uncle Andrew.