Contest

I picked him up from school today. He was enthusiastically telling me about his day in disjointed fragments — as he always does.

“We had science today! We learned about cows! And Sam took the red bus home from school. But Laura was it when we played tag in the gym. and you know what?  Did you know that Steven had pizza at hot lunch and there are three letters that can be silent at the end of a word in Hebrew?”

After a while, you learn which parts of it to tune out and which parts to focus on. I knew that it was going to be a quick conversation — because we were almost at the car where he would ultimately zone out.

He got in the back seat where Woof, his trusty stuffed blue dog (now grey with age) was waiting for him. He buckled himself into his booster seat and I started the car. He hugged Woof to his face. A began to suck on the fingers of his left hand.

He’s six. This is certainly not highly uncommon behavior for someone his age, but we’re trying to get him to stop. He just had his 6-year old checkup, and the doctor made it clear to him that it’s something that he shouldn’t do at six. Sometimes, however, he forgets. And usually we can just remind him on the spot and he removes his fingers.

Today he had other plans.

“Av, fingers out of your mouth please?”

“But I’m asleep!”

Yes. We’ve talked to him about the one loophole: if he happens to be asleep with his fingers in his mouth, we’re not going to wake him just so he can remove them. But he very rarely falls asleep in that position anyway, so it’s not as much of a big deal.

His declaring that he’s already asleep, however — not quite going to work on us.

“If you’re asleep, why are you talking to me? Come on. Fingers out of your mouth please…”

“Can’t I just rest like this? Pleeeeease?”

I kind of understood where he was coming from. This was his habit-forming ritual. His craving to just jam those fingers in his mouth with Woof right there was as potent as a smoker needed his/her coffee and cigs first thing in the morning. (I suppose I should disclose that Woof is about 65% tobacco and 15% coca leaf.)

I ended up bribing him by letting him play with my iPhone. The car trip to and from school is really his time with it, and he’s gotten extremely good at Cro-Mag Rally. But he also knows the cardinal rule: no wet fingers on the iPhone.  If he was to use it, he’d have to not suck on his fingers.

That worked quite well. Eventually he gave the phone back to me and started a conversation:

“Do you not want me to suck on my fingers because I’m six?”

Sure, why not? “Yes. You’re a big boy now — and big boys don’t suck their fingers.”

“What if I’m asleep and I’m sucking my fingers?”

I told him, per above, that things are different when he’s asleep. But reiterated that it’s something we’re trying to get away from.

“What if I’m in a finger sucking contest?”

Dramatic pause of surprise.

“I would do really well in a finger sucking contest. I would come in first place.”

I told him I didn’t think such contests actually existed, but I assured him I would look it up online, which I did. Did you know that “finger sucking contest,” when used as a Google search term, comes up with a lot of family-unfriendly responses?  True.

I’m just wondering who would host a finger-sucking contest? Who would cover it for ESPN?

Who would sponsor such a contest I’m thinking Aveeno. Purell. Dial antibacterial soap.