American Picker

There are sooooo many places on the human body that little boys can put their fingers into, y'all. And except for a few (very) rare circumstances, nearly all of those places are socially unacceptable. And finger placement in pretty much 100% of those places requires a ridiculous amount of hand washing/hand sanitizer.

Lucky for me, my kids do not put their fingers in their pants in public. (The story is different at home because, well, they hardly wear pants when they're here - I'm inadvertantly raising nudists, I swear.) But my three-year-old, Cameron? His finger has taken up permanent residence in his nose.

Well, when it's not traveling. To his mouth.

I know.

He's always been more of a natural nose-picker than the rest of my kids, even as a little bitty thing. But lately his index finger is almost perpetually rooted knuckle-deep in the recesses of his schnoz. See following photos for confirmation:

Attempt #1 at a decent picture of myself and the dudes ... 

... and attempt #2. Mission FAIL.

So what's the logical thing to do when someone's picking their nose? Hand them a tissue, right? Right. But if you've been reading the Frump for long, you know that if you give Cameron a tissue ... he'll eat it. Obviously that isn't the best solution here. Consequently, I've admonished, reminded and scolded until I'm blue in the face. Threatened. Pleaded. Bribed. Made up some fantastically elaborate tale about how your fingers put germs in your nose and the germs attack your blood cells and make you contagious and then you make the whole town sick just by picking your nose so if you stop doing it you'll prevent the germs from spreading and thereby that makes you, like, some kind of superhero.

Or something.

But regardless of the 1,247 methods I've tried to get the nose-mining to come to a halt, NOTHING IS WORKING. My ineffectiveness is pathetic. Cameron is the most persistent picker I know, as though it were a career and he's climbing the corporate ladder. I only hope his dedication to work is someday as strong as his current dedication to acquainting himself with the inside of his nose.

I'm thinking about taping his index and middle fingers together so they're too big to fit in his nose.*

*I'm just kidding. **

**I think.

Is your kid (or, hell, yourself) a reformed nose-picker? I need a surefire way to break this habit before he's walking across the stage at his high school graduation with a finger in his nostril!