Off With the Thumb

For those of you who do not know, (but if you know my family at all- you would know) Connor is almost seven years old and still avidly sucks his thumb. I keep asking the dentist if this is a problem and every time (and three dentists later) they have all said the same thing...that it is not affecting his teeth...yet. IF it were to start messing them up...they would put in some type of guard. I really wanted that guard because anything short of chopping off Connor's thumb...I really do not know how to break him of the habit. Connor seems to continue to bring in sickness after sickness into our home and I can not stand it. Some may say it is because he is in school and they all share germs at that age. True, but I KNOW we would not be dealing with some of the DISGUSTING things he seems to bring home if it were not for that thumb and him ingesting all that bacteria and germs. So after recently being totally disgusted by his latest and greatest disease...I swore to him that the thumb was going to be chopped off! Connor's little face immediately turned pale(r) white and his head dropped. He would not look up at me and immediately got incredibly quiet. The poor dear thought I was REALLY going to cut off his thumb! What a horribly mean mom he must have to actually have believed I would do such a thing! But I was still so mad that I could not bring myself to tell him I was not really going to cut off his thumb for at least 5 cruel minutes of suffering. However, we did google some thumb sucking kickers and found one we bought. Some of the comments said it made their kids throw up. Is it mean of us that we did not care? :) Maybe it will break him of the habit after all...he can choose to throw up if he wants to suck his thumb. It is a really nasty tasting stuff that is applied to the nail. So far there has been no throwing up...but at lot of spitting and gagging in our home. :) The other night he woke up screaming because I guess he took a big suck in his sleep and could not get the taste out of his mouth. He now goes to sleep with a sock over his hand. Poor little guy. I really should be more sympathetic...after all, I was a thumb sucker too!