Hygiene

Carver has had an increasingly difficult time over the last few weeks when mealtime comes. He will be so busy entertaining himself with one thing or another that when we encourage him to sit up and have some food he gives every excuse he can find. He’ll claim that he’s not hungry, he’ll claim that he already ate, and sometimes he’ll just say straight out that he just wants to play.

Earlier in the week, I was working on him hard to convince him to eat. I thought rather than trying to go directly to the food part, I would start out with the easier step of getting him to wash his hands. Still, he parried every way he could. “But I can’t wash my hands!” he insisted. I was optimistic and told him that if we tried, I’m sure we could wash his hands. He responded with, “Because [sic] I don’t want to wash my hands!”

I reasoned with him that it is still important to wash our hands because they get dirty. Carver, now getting desperate to avoid the horrors of soap and warm water on his bare hands, made his final plea. “But Dad, I washed my hands yesterday!”

Eventually he did climb up on his stool and wash his hands. In his mind, he must be covered for another week now.

#LittleGems