Binky?

When Sophia was a baby I pretty much decided for her that she was going to like a binky because I knew that it was easier to get rid of in the future than her thumb. The only type of binky she liked was the ugly hospital one, so we went with it (even though I really wanted the cute kind, ha!). Well...Sophia has been only getting her binky in bed for a long time now and has been fine with that until recently....She has 3 cousins who suck their thumbs and a couple of kids at her preschool and she has been smart enough to catch on to that. This is probably what she was thinking, "Why do they have their thumb in their mouth? I guess I'll try it, but I'll suck on my pointer finger instead. Ohhhh wow, that does sooth me like a binky! I'll suck on my finger now when I don't have me binky." Seriously, she's 2 and she's now sucking on her finger! Isn't that a little backwards? In the mean time I was trying to figure out what to do. I noticed that she sucked on her finger more when she was in the car and tired, so I started to give her the binky in the car because I didn't want that finger in her mouth! One day she threw her binky in the car and we forgot to bring it inside. That night TJ went to play basketball with the car and the binky. Oh great is what I thought, but Sophia didn't even really question it because she had her finger to fall back on. She has been sleeping without her binky for about 5 days and asks for it occasionally. We explain that it got lost and we can't find it and she's okay with that answer. Bye, bye binky. But in the mean time, her finger was still being sucked and it really bothered me. Over the weekend I talked with Sophia about it a lot, but not a huge change was happening. When I dropped her off at her preschool Monday I told Ms. Shelby about the binky being "lost" and about the finger (which she already knew about) so she could help remind Sophia about NO FINGER. When I went back to pick Sophia up Ms. Shelby had her tell me something. She told me, "Sleep with no binky and no finger!!!" Hallelujah! I asked Shelby her trick and she told Sophia a story about a shark with sharp teeth and that she doesn't want to put her fingers in her mouth because they might get hurt. I didn't get the full story, but if "shark teeth" works, I'm in! We are only 2 days in but there has been no binky or finger! Hopefully Sophia will continue making this an easy transition. She said she wanted a soccer ball, so we made a deal...No finger=Soccer ball! I am all about deals with this kind of stuff!!! I do have to say that I am lucky because there has been not big fight about it (so far...keep my fingers crossed)!!!