Tiny

Declan started biting his nails at some point recently. It was not too bad at first and I did not realize what was going on until it was too late. He has developed a full-blown bad habit. He chews every angle of every finger and he is left with tiny nubs. All I have to say is "Fingers" and he immediately pulls them out. But then he tries to hide from me so he can continue gnawing on them. I could not handle it anymore and he started to get little breakouts on his face which gave me a HFMD scare and so I decided we are done with the nail biting, nose picking. Done done done.

The bitter-tasting nail polish did not stop him so I had to escalate my attack. This morning I put band-aids on his ten tiny fingers. Then I put a pile of quarters on the kitchen table (this idea was courtesy of madre) and told him I would take one away every time I saw his fingers in his mouth. I only took away four quarters today which is some small miracle because it used to be four times in a minute he would have his fingers in his mouth. I think the band-aids helped a lot. Tomorrow I will use tape. I am already going broke from the quarters, I don't need to spend all the rest of my money on band-aids. This little tyrant is going to send me to the psych ward with his shenanigans.