a good kind of peer pressure

After 8.75 years of sucking his thumb, our son quit.

I think this as a huge milestone.

Quitting the thumb took me over a decade. 

{No joke} 

There may or may not have been a day in high school when I locked myself into a bathroom stall and...

My parents {even my sisters} employed many strategies to help me quit:

finger condoms, "consequences," tall tales of thumb-sucking horrors, and stomach-lurching concoctions

But our son needed none of those things.

He just decided to quit.

{because}

One month ago, he went to the dentist to have his teeth cleaned.

His mouth is quite a fright {orthodontically speaking} and the dentist reminded me that we will need to start thinking about an orthodontic plan soon.

You mean, I will need to get braces? our son asked.

Yup, I said, expecting to hear anxious grumbling.

Instead, I heard "AWESOME!" as he offered his dentist a high five.

Kind of stunned, I replied "Well, we won't be doing braces until you stop sucking your thumb."

He was quiet for a moment and then tells me he is going to make a plan for when he will stop sucking his thumb, "but are you sure I can't have braces at the same time?"

We discussed braces and thumb-sucking all the way home, a commute during which I learned that all of his peers are getting braces and he "definitely need[s] them which is good because...they are cool!"

Hmmm, braces are cool?!!?

Well, that was certainly not my take on the issue but thanks to his peers,

our son decided {that night} to stop sucking his thumb.  

As in, done.

Just like that.

Last night I told him how impressed I was with his accomplishment.

He patted my face and replied, 

"Mama, I told you I would quit when I was ready."