Keep your fingers off it, leave it alone

You know it doesn't belong to you.

I feel like a broken record at the moment and this is all I seem to be saying to oldest. He is forever touching - he touches everything he can when we go shopping, if there is something different on the side he has to pick it up and he does the same when we are at other people’s houses.

 The last week has seen 2 incidents;

1)     A razor! He went into a bathroom he was told not to, he had a climb and found a razor. He cut his hand with it. Cue many tears, lots of tissues and a plaster plus a stern talking to about touching things that aren’t his in rooms that he has been asked not to go into.

2)      Last Sunday morning he went to the toilet at a friend’s house. When he was longer than expected I went to check on him to find his hands covered in blue. After my immediate panic I worked out from the smell that it was blue nail varnish. A glance around the bathroom brought into reality that not only was it over all his hands but also the floor, a white wicker drawer set and the sink. A bottle of remover later and the worst of the damage was gone but there had to be a consequence so we left after making him apologise.

 I am so scared that one day he will touch something and cause himself serious harm which means that we surely can’t leave him unsupervised at all – not going to the toilet, not playing in his bedroom or playing in the garden. But, if we do this we are giving him what he craves, undivided attention all of the time. It means youngest looses out when both children are with just the one of us. Plus what implication does that have for her safety.

We have made a real effort to make our environment as safe as possible – the garden is secure and no tools can be reached, everything medicinal is out of sight and out of reach, we have the stair gate for the top of the stairs, scissors are kept away, the kitchen cupboards and drawers all have child locks, the cleaning chemicals are locked away but we wouldn’t and can’t expect this when we are visiting so what do we do? Keep him supervised? If we do that we never give him chance to earn our trust. But in the meantime I am terrified of what he might get his hands on.

 It is hard and the image in my head is of him stood, in his pyjamas, showing me his bright blue hands and saying ‘I didn’t touch anything’