A Little Obsessiveness

The other day, we went to State College to do some shopping, mainly trying to find bargains for back to school clothing needs for the kids. Mandy had scored quite well on Saturday at some of the local yard sales but on Monday, after taking a load of clothes the kids had outgrown over to a very nice consignment shop there and getting a good credit applied to her account followed by finding a few items there in the right sizes too, we went to a couple of the larger stores in the region.

At one store, I came across a really cute light blue (sort of a light blue denim look) tee-shirt that had one word on it, emblazoned across the chest.

OBSESSED!

And it was in just the right size that Miss Maya is currently wearing and I felt it was the most appropriate word ever to be on a tee shirt for her because you see, she is frequently obsessed with things!

We've gone through several phases of her obsessions -early on, she was obsessed with watching the Country Music Channel on TV -when she was about 2-3 years old -and she had a little toy guitar which she would hold in front of her, imitating various country musicians on TV with their style of holding the guitar, their movements and such and then, she would sing one or two lines of some of their most popular songs along with the videos as they played on the tv screen.

Then, she developed an obsession for dates -particularly paying close attention to the days/dates she heard her mother say that there was a doctor or dentist appointment lined up for her or for her mom -it mattered not which, because she would remember these dates and she obsessed about watching the calendar -which she had done a pretty decent job of learning to read that for a child of only 3-5 years of age!

She's had lots and lots of other obsessions too over these very formative years but one that has been with her the longest is one we really would like to get it to cease and desist as both Mandy and I -as well as her aunt too -have tried everything and anything to get her to stop with this one.

What might that be, you ask?

She obsesses over any kind of bug bite or nick, scratch, you name it on herself -arms, legs, face, chest -or on anyone else too who might have a limb or other body part that has a mark on it and is within her range and she will be constantly trying to scratch it open!

I think about the only thing we haven't done is to show her eczema pictures and use them as examples that this is what her skin is going to look like -marred and scarred up -if she doesn't stop with this obsessive scratching and digging at these marks!

Any suggestions of what we can do to get her to stop this one?