Friday, October 16, 2009

Elmo Says Don't Pick Your Nose

The morning drive from our house to Mimi’s, where I drop off the Hawklets in the morning is rife with conversation. Yesterday, the conversation was mostly between Graham and me. I was doing the talking, he was doing the wailing. I was explaining to Graham that when one sits at the table in front of his breakfast not eating it, and then is forced to get in the car and leave with an empty stomach because he wouldn’t eat his breakfast, then perhaps the next day he can try eating the breakfast instead of staring it down, and we would all be much happier. These are really philosophical conversations we have on the platform of ‘how the world works.’

Last week, the conversation was between the Hawklets and I was a mere eavesdropper. “Reid, DON’T PICK YOUR NOSE! No, Reid! We don’t pick our noses! Put that boogie back in there RIGHT NOW!”

We’ve been working on poor Reid. He’s just at that stage that the finger and nose seem to have some magnetic qualities. We are often batting his little hands down from his face. Oh, right, and it’s flu season.

But now we have an advocate. Elmo has partnered with the U.S. government to back us up. So now when we tell Reid that his fingers and nose can’t come into contact, we reinforce it with “Elmo says!” He is catching on. Sometimes, we see a little finger start to make its way up and then his eyes meet ours and his little voice says “Elmo says” as the little finger retreats, back down to whatever object from which the sudden urge to nose-pick distracted him.

Thanks to all of this, Elmo is actually becoming quite an authoritative figure in our household.

I ask Reid to stop standing on his chair. He asks me: “Elmo says?” I say: “Yes, Elmo says get down.” He gets down. Voila!

Sort of like the new Simon Says game. Elmo says take a bath. Elmo says brush your teeth. Elmo says don’t hit your brother. Elmo says no wrestling in the bathtub.

Hey, Elmo is powerful. Even the government thinks so.