A toe jam obsession

My daughter is completely obsessed with her toe lint. Each and every time she pulls her socks off, she grabs her foot, hunches over and starts picking through her little wiggly toes. Once she’s satisfied that her first foot is void of sock fluffs, she moves on to her next foot. The look of sheer concentration on her face is priceless. I use to get frustrated at how diligent she was making sure her toes were jam free, especially when she would take up to five minutes and delayed bedtime, but now I just watch her smiling and wait patiently until she’s done. Rushing her only makes her frustrated, which then makes the whole toe picking ordeal last longer.

Why she chooses her toes to obsesses over, I don’t know, but I know she’s not the only one. The other day when we went to the YMCA for her weekly swimming lesson, she was getting changed into her bathing suit and of course stopped to inspect her toes when she pulled off her socks. Another mom saw her, looked at me and smiled knowingly. Obviously I’m not the only mother of a toe jam obsessed kid.

In fact, a Google search of ‘toddler toe jam’ shows quite a few results from forums and blogs, as well as some YouTube videos of kids picking the lint from their toes. I’m not sure why parents would make a video and post it online, but to each their own. It’s funny what little kids obsess over and in the grand scheme of things, picking toe lint is not something I’m going to worry about. I’m sure she’ll grow out of it soon enough and move on to a new obsession.