Hinges and Thumbs

Every child has a favorite teddy bear, lovey, or toy . . . well my son has a strange favorite thing. Every morning when I go in to get him he rubs his eyes and then starts anxiously looking for it. For what you might ask . . . the hinge on his crib. It gets the first smile every morning and after every nap. He also loves the doorknob, buttons, zippers, rivets, etc. Anything that is made of shiny metal has Graham's number. Dave thinks that this means he is going to be an engineer, but I have had to remind Dave that this could also mean he could be a mechanic, trashcollector, assembly worker, etc. (all of which we will be perfectly fine with of course as long as he is happy). No really though, I wonder if that means something? I guess only time will tell as he starts choosing his toys and playing games. If he starts constructing complex buildings out of Lego's then I might be convinced of the engineer thing.

On another note, I am running into an issue with Graham. How can a child crawl with a thumb in his mouth? Almost every time he gets up on his knees he is propped up on one elbow because he needs to have the thumb in his mouth. I have tried explaining to him that it is impossible to crawl with two knees, one hand and one elbow, but he does not listen (I am convinced he must have heard about that dog that walks around on its back legs). All of the things I have read say to not take their thumb out of their mouth or make it an issue because it will only make them want it more and eventually it will pass on its own. I am not so sure. I would venture to say that the thumb is here to stay. Well, he is definitely his mothers child as my mom reminded me. I sucked my thumb until I was seven and even then only gave it up because my Mom tried some potion that is supposed to make it taste bad. I would have just sucked that stuff right off and kept going, but unfortunately for me I had an allergic reaction and my thumb blew up which made it impossible to suck. That was the end of thumb sucking for me. I can only hope that Graham's thumb sucking ends much more pleasantly (and before the age of 7!).