My child's archenemy...

My child has an archenemy. Now, you might be thinking, "What?? He's only (almost) 20 months old! Who or what could be his archenemy??"

Well, I'll tell you. It's toe-sock-fuzz. Yes. My son absolutely HATES toe-sock-fuzz (TSF) with a passion. There is a catch, though...he only hates it when it is IN HIS BATHWATER!!! It terrifies him!

I have to admit, I don't really want to sit in a tub of water surrounded by a lot of fuzzy bits of sock, but it's not so much scary to me. Austin won't even get INTO the tub if he sees any type of fuzz floating in the water. This has happened a couple of times now. Once, I don't know if it was specifically TSF, but it was small, it was something that used to be fuzzy, and it was floating by him in the bathwater. Yikes.

Two nights ago, we staged a war against TSF, and we were victorious! On this day, Austin had been wearing black socks from The Children's Place. These are particularly known for creating excessive amounts of TSF, which I failed to remember. I got his bath ready, stripped him down, and put him in the water. At the exact moment that his feet hit the water, the TSF was released from the toes and started floating everywhere! Austin immediately started making the whiny/cry-type noise that means, "MOM!!!! I'm scared of the fuzzy black things in the water!!! Don't let them TOUCH ME!!!!!!!!" My reaction was, "Oh great! How am I ever going to scoop ALL of these fuzzy things out of the water? This is going to take forever!" I contemplated emptying the tub and starting again, but I really didn't want to waste all that water. I tried to explain to Austin that the TSF is nothing to fear, and that it's just small pieces of cotton. He wasn't buying. I tried showing him that it didn't hurt me when it was touching my hand, but no dice. Finally, I resorted to attempting to catch all the TINY pieces of TSF floating in the water and toss them out while Austin sat naked on the side of the tub, cowering in fear.

I eventually wised up and started scooping the TSF out of the tub with the shampoo rinse cup. This did waste some water, but was much more efficient for ridding our lives of the dreaded TSF!! Everytime I scooped, I said, "Look! All gone!" However, Austin would not be fooled. He would scan the water and spot the one MICROSCOPIC piece of TSF that still remained in the water (or something else that wasn't actually TSF but just some piece of something floating in the water) and point and make that whine/cry noise, so I would go back in with my trusty cup and attempt to scoop it out!

We finally beat the TSF and reclaimed the bathtub as our own and the bath was taken! We were victorious!! However, don't come near my child with any TSF...it is his kryptonite!