I was a thumbsucker

I admit it. Big time. Until I was eight. Once I got to school I didn't do it in public, although I clearly remember getting my friends to play house in kindergarten so that I could be the baby and suck my thumb. When I broke my thumb at seven, once safely in my bed at night, I would oh-so-carefully pull the metal and foam splint thing off and gingerly suck my thumb through the night. As a side note, I also bit my fingernails, twirled my hair and loved my blankie to threads. I might have been an insecure child.

At some point my mother read a poem called The Story of Little Suck-A-Thumb. To me it will always be known as The Red Legged Scissorman. So my mother thought she would play a little trick on me. You know, her child. A sampling:

Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows
his hands;-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little
Suck-a-Thumb."

We were at my grandmother's house in the kitchen and she read me the poem. My grandmother wasn't there, as I recall, though I am pretty sure one of my (then teenage) aunts was). Then, coincidentally, the little girl from the house behind my grandmother's came over. She was about my age (5? 6?). Her thumb was firmly fastened to the palm of her hand with bandages. By all appearances (to me, anyway) her thumb had been snipped clean off. It was a lovely moment for me.

I have never thought the less of myself for having been a thumbsucker. With each of my babies I've helped them find their thumbs. None of them cared for their thumbs (crazy children!). They would look at me like I was trying to poison them. Until now. My Lydia is a thumbsucker. And she found her thumb herself. Right thumb, like her mama. Though she also enjoys the first two fingers on her left. But never the left thumb and never the right fingers. And if she continues until she is an adult, I will never read that poem to her.