Ryan asked Easton what he wanted to learn about at FHE tonight. Easton said, “Temples!” And Ryan gave us our first multi-media family home evening lesson. He hooked the laptop up to the TV and away he went. We looked at the two closest temples to us, Frankfurt Germany and Bern Switzerland. Ryan showed us the youtube video of “Why Mormons Build Temples” which the boys enjoyed seeing all the temple images. We discussed who can go inside the temple and what we learn there. We ended with the Angel Moroni statue atop each temple. I think FHE lessons will never be the same again. We even sung our closing song, “I love to see the temple,” with itunes in stereo still connected to the TV. Kinda funny.
While the boys settled in to watch “Bolt,” I grabbed Morgan’s blanket to I could get a couple shots of her with it. This is her one and only comfort item. See what she does with it? Stuffs the nice soft silky part as far into her mouth as her little hands can manage while uttering a nice, satisfied moan! When she’s tired, she does chew on her thumb like she will eventually be a thumb sucker, but it’s only as a substitute for her true love, the silky edged blanket. I only figured this out a month ago! And she can fall asleep without it which is also great!
I’m a big believer in putting my babies to bed awake and letting them figure out how to sooth themselves to sleep. We go through rough patches now and then, but on the whole it’s really worked for us. However, once that door is closed and I don’t hear a peep, I stay out until there is a peep so I never quite know how they do it. Their sleep positions always crack me up, it’s always just so cute isn’t it?!
Easton was a thumb sucker pretty early on as you can see. I just found a great video clip of him sucking away as if it was his life's work, which let's be honest, at four months, it probably was! But as soon as he could crawl, which was by the time he was six months actually, he became a garment stealing fool!
This picture was taken when he was two and I was still figuring out how that camera worked, sorry. I had brought up the laundry to fold and he did his thing collecting all his favorites. He was always pulling my silkies tops out of the hamper or clean laundry pile to amass a collection. He loved the elastic on the camisole which he’d run his fingernail up and down as you can see. It was pretty adorable but not when we had guests or needed to be out and about. When Easton was three, he’d sucked his thumb so hard he’d broken the skin and stopped cold turkey on his own. Last year we broke him out of the silkies but every time he has quiet time or time out on my bed, he comes out with a silky. Old habits die hard.
McKay is still our quintessential thumb sucker. He uses the other hand to caress either his ears, arms, or legs – he loves skin! I have no idea how we’ll break him of the habit although getting him potty-trained is more terrifying to me at the moment. It’s gotta be done soon, I just gotta buck up and do it! All the traveling we do just adds to my sense of foreboding doom.
I know my comfort item as a baby was my thumb and what became a ratty cotton edged yellow blanket. Eventually I believe my parents had to hide the blanket to try and break me of it. Thus far I’ve just been grateful that none of my kids have been pacifier kids or diehard comfort item fanatics. I may be silly, but I like the thumb sucking because they’re free and we can’t lose thumbs on an outing! Keeping them clean, well that’s another subject entirely.
Alright, time for bed!
