Life's Big Problems - October 15, 2025

Today on social media, I saw a post from a young mother of a two-year-old boy who has developed the habit of chewing on the neck of his shirt.  Everywhere they go, his shirt is wet.  She can't figure out how to stop him from doing it and asked her friends for advice.  

A friend my age (we are now both grandmothers) had a problem with her 5-year-old son rubbing his pee-pee to help him fall asleep at kindergarten naptime.  The teacher was complaining.  At the time, being a young, inexperienced mother, myself, all I could suggest was to get him a rabbit's foot keychain to keep in his pocket to rub, instead.  (Someone who actually has a pee-pee probably finds this solution preposterous.  <shrug>)

About that same time, I was struggling with a two-year-old who twisted my hair while he sucked his thumb.  He slept in the bed with us (for longer than I ever imagined when I let him sleep with us when he was sick).  He would twist my hair all the way to my scalp, slurping and smacking on his thumb, right next to my ear.  It drove me INSANE, and when I would make him quit, he'd roll over and twist The Husband's hair.  It was a nightly battle that resolved itself only when he was old enough to reason that he was physically too big to sleep with us.  (By that time, his brother had joined the crowd, and nobody could roll over; we kicked them both out of our bed at the same time.)

I just laughed about the shirt-chewer, and hoped that this is the worst trouble he'll ever give her.  :)