Parker Sucks

Parker sucks on his fingers ALL THE TIME. He also puts anything and everything in his mouth. If I had to guess, I would say that he has something in his mouth 85% of the time. His mouth gets chapped, he smacks his lips and it makes it worse. We've tried talking to him about it, punishing him for it, rewarding him when not doing it, and even making him wear gloves. Nothing works.

Any suggestions? My only next thought is that icky stuff you put on to get them to stop sucking their thumbs.

Parker has also discovered that he can say "No" (or rather simply ignore us) or "Why" to requests from us. This has never (except for a 6 month period when he was about 2) occurred to him. Some of his requests are reasonable ("Why do I need to put jammies on at 7pm if my bedtime is 7:30?") and I wish I had more patience to explain "adult" things to him ("because you take too long to get dressed at 7:30 and I thought I would try this approach by having you get dressed before we play games and read books") but sometimes I just don't have the energy and just want him to do it.

My guess is that he is learning this from the girls, but I suppose it could just be normal part of growing up.