Saving water

Most of you know I used to work for the Orange County Water District, so I learned all the real reasons we should save water. When your child is learning to potty train, saving water is very difficult to accomplish at the same time...not only are you flushing the toilet more frequently than the average person, but you're washing hands more frequently, and each of those hand washings can consume the water used in a bathtub (if the child is left to wash hands unsupervised).

Then the weather turned cold and Lukas not only wanted to spend a lot of water washing his hands, but he wanted it to be warm water! So he let the water run, waiting for it to get warm (not necessarily with the hot or warm water turned on), then when it would finally get warm (or when he finally realized he had been letting it run on cold for 5 minutes) he would enjoy the warm water and play another 5 minutes in the sink.

The other storyline that is important is that Lukas had eczema when he was an infant, and has break outs of eczema each winter when it gets cold and/or dry. We put Eucerin cream on his wrists and the backs of his legs to control the dryness, but lately his wrists have been staying dry. Then, when I try to use Purell after a doctor visit or a shopping trip, he screams because it stings in the dried out skin.

I happened to tell him last week that the warm water that he wants to wash with and play in contributes to his eczema (dries his skin out). He took it to heart! Incroyable! Now he tells people (including his barber) that he "doesn't use warm water because it gives me eczema." And he WANTS to wash his hands in cold water (even in the cold weather). Just goes to show that if the incentive is strong enough...he hates the stinging of Purell, and now he'll use cold water.

Wow, now our water bill will drop 20%. Well, maybe not...he's still playing in the cold water, but not as long, because IT'S COLD!