Thumbs Up

We have a thumb sucker.  I guess I should has we had a thumb sucker.  He wasn't the worst case, but a thumb sucker none the less.  Typically he would suck his thumb when sleeping, napping, tire, riding in the car, or watching a movie.  He wasn't one of those kids who constantly walks around with it in his mouth, but he was definitely a thumb sucker.  We've been talking to him for several months about giving it up.  My goal was to have him thumb free by school so that gave me this year to work on it.  We've been talking it up, but he was not interested.  Finally one day while we were talking about it I asked him if he could have anything as a reward for stopping what would it be.  He replied "A BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!"  Not just any Buzz.  The real deal.  Lights, lasers, talking...the whole 9 yards.  Aaron & I discussed it (Buzz is not cheap by any means) and decided that if he quit sucking his thumb we'd splurge and get Buzz.  He was still struggling wiht his decision so while we were at Target one day I decided to take him by the toy section to see if they had a Buzz.  They did.  I showed him all the cool lights, lasers, sounds, and he feel in love.  I told him if he quit sucking his thumb for 2 weeks we'd come back and get him.  He was excited (partially because he thought we were getting Buzz that day...and he cried when we left without him), and it gave him the incentive he needed to reach his goal.  I intended to make a chart to mark of the days, but time got away from me.  After a few days I noticed he wasn't sucking it and thought it better to just go on with the days without saying anything.   Every few days I'd ask him about it and tell him how good of a job he was doing and how proud I was of him.  Well, he earned it!!  He has actually been thumb free (with the exception of night which is hard to monitor.  I haven't seen him do it, but I really don't know) now for 3 weeks!!  We are so proud of him!  He set his mind to it and did it.  Buzz became a member of the family last night and as you can tell Levi is super excited about him.