Sand

It's taken 2 months, but Josiah has finally realized that there is actually nothing to stop him from putting Daniel's pacifiers in his mouth. And with that realization, the oral fixation that I thought we so easily got rid of with a new green bike, is back.

And while we do punish (or at least threaten to punish, which I suppose is part of the problem) him for sucking on Daniel's pacifiers, there is nothing on the front end to stop the actual act. Just a consequence afterwards. Which, unfortunately, is not always a deterrent for a 3-year-old.

But it isn't just the pacifiers. Because he does know that he is not supposed to play with them or suck on them. It's everything. Fingers, toys, money... everything is back in his mouth.

Of course Daniel doesn't care. He would actually much rather suck on his fingers. He just can't seem to find them all the time. So this morning at 5am when he didn't want to nurse and he didn't want the pacifier and I had changed his diaper and still he continued to fuss... I stuck his fist in his mouth and he was happy. And he eventually isolated his thumb and sucked away until he fell back asleep.

I'm torn. I like the idea of not having to worry about dropping pacifiers into the Hong Kong Harbor. Or loosing them on the bus. Or putting them back in little mouths in the middle of the night. But you can't very well trade a thumb for a bike at 3-years-old. I'll keep giving him the pacifier and as he develops more muscle control, I guess we'll see which one he chooses.

So we have a little thumb sucker and a big sand eater. At least that's what he told me when he and Daddy got back from flying a kite at the beach.