Sep
Scabs, Lies and Videotape
Declan has recently discovered the joy of picking scabs, not one to deprive him of such pleasure I haven’t got massively out of my way to stop him – he’s the kind of kid that if I say no will just get even more excited about whatever activity I’ve banned him from. That is until I realised that this scab has been sitting on his knee for over a month now, barely being given a chance to heal before my son gets his little fingernails under it and rips it off delighting in the blood running down his leg. Ick.
The blood was there this morning, so I asked him whether he’d been picking, knowing full well the answer.
His face was sheepish, but his voice told another story, a flat out “no!” with a tone that was trying to tell me just how shocked he was by my accusation.
“Are you sure?” I asked him.
“Yes!” he said defiantly, then he bowed his head realising that the game was up “No… but you shouldn’t pick scabs.”
I don’t know whether to be shocked that he’s trying out lying to get out of something (particularly something that really isn’t going to get him into trouble) or to delight in the fact that yet another piece of his psyche has been formed, the part that will one day lead to him telling his teacher that his little brother ate his homework. It might not be the kind of thing the average parent jots down in a baby book, but ever so slowly the layers on my toddler are building up and turning him into a child, one that will one day be a teen and then eventually an adult.
I just hope that he doesn’t chose to take up a career as a lawyer, after folding that easily I don’t see him getting very far.