I picked this picture because it looks like my school portrait from third grade. I had a similar hairstyle, one that my mother prided herself on because she cut it herself and the blunt cut was perfectly straight. She'd sit me on the kitchen step-chair (the kind where the seat pulls up to make it a step ladder for reaching cans on the top shelf of the pantry), and she'd tell me to sit still. When the scissors tickled the back of my neck I'd squirm, only to get poked by the scissors when I moved. Like the girl in this picture, I also had a space between my two front teeth that everyone thought came from sucking my thumb, which I did until age twelve. My mother blamed Dr. Spock for my thumb-sucking: she'd read in his book that she should take me off the bottle at one and a half, too soon she now insists. When I immediately started sucking my thumb, she turned again to Spock, but read that she should not to give in. Most of all, I remember the comfort of sucking my thumb...I couldn't go to sleep without it. But sleep-overs were tough. I'd wait until the other girls were asleep, or I'd roll over and hide under the covers. My very best friend, Roxanne, knew I sucked my thumb but she didn't care. One night my thumb didn't taste good anymore...it's as simple as that. My teeth gradually grew together and everyone in my family considered it good fortune that I didn't need braces.

submitted by Liliana Martin
Winchester, Massachusetts USA
September 1996