Finger Lickin' Good

Inside every one's nose lives a sharp toothed snail.
If you stick your finger up, he may bite your nail off.
Stick it farther up inside and he might bite your ring off.
Stick it farther up inside, and might bite the whole darn thing off.

~~Shel Silverstien

And this is what was recited to our children the other night at the dinner table. Why, you ask? Because my children are booger diggers of the highest order. Any time, any place, so long as the finger is working.

Which means the dinner table is as good a place as any. In the middle of a meal.

And I don't know about your experience with pre-schoolers, but the overwhelming majority of the ones I have met don't just harvest the nose crop, but ingest them, too. Sad to say, my kids are not one of the exceptions.

There, I said it.

What was meant to happen was to make the kids giggle and then follow up with the explanation of how gross a habit this is. What actually happened was that Thomas' face crumpled and he started whining in earnest about not wanting a snail in his nose. We snickered behind our hands, and pressed on, insisting that he didn't want to find out the hard way if a sharp toothed snail actually lived up there.

Yes, we led our son to believe that this monster lived in his nose. Because that's the type of sick, twisted minds we, his parents, have.

The discussion has come up a few times since then, each time leaving Thomas irritable and fussy. We have reiterated that there might not be an actual snail in his nose. Then we follow it up with, 'Is it worth losing your finger over?'

It's a nasty trick, people.

It's a nasty habit, children.

Drastic times call for drastic measures.