My kingdom for a screw-on cap.

Anthony's obsession with ripping things has extended to flip-top caps of toiletries for quite some time now. That of itself would be tolerable except that the edges left over are sharp enough to inflict a good scratch if considerable care isn't taken in the handling of them. Clipping off the edges only makes a different sharp edge, and I'm not going to the trouble of trying to file them down *each and every time* he does this. Burning the edges is another option, but the results are inexact and, hey, I'm literally playing with fire.

For shampoos, conditioners, and body soaps, we have resorted to re-filling pump bottles of more expensive (read: my wife's) products with the suitably inexpensive ones Anthony and I use. It should be noted that he doesn't discriminate; even some of my wife's products have flip-top caps, and he's quite happy to go after those as well.

Some products such as face washes don't work well with pumps, however, and for those it's a matter of finding ones that are both worth using and also come with a screw-on cap. I have happily used one that meets those conditions from a dollar store a number of times, but it is difficult to find except at a particular location, and now it appears it might have fallen victim to discontinuation altogether. I'm actually rather stressed about this; the following example illustrates the problem.

I am taking a few days off currently. Last night, Anthony was edgy but we determined it was a bathroom issue. He didn't go after sitting on the toilet for a while, but seemed all right, so we had him go to bed as usual. When I went to get him out of bed this morning to get ready for school, though, I found that he had vomited on his bedding, including his pillow, and had slept in that so that the side of his head was covered in vomit. (As an aside, although this is the first such instance in his lifetime, obviously we don't want him to go through that even once. My wife and I are trying to think of what will work for him and for us to ensure we can minimize any future time spent in similar situations). I cleaned him up and put him in a warm bath, hoping that would help him to feel better if he was still feeling sick.

I went about some other tasks and came back about 15 minutes later to completely wash and dry him, then had him sit on the toilet because he had given me reason to feel that might still be an area of concern. I took all of his bedding outside to wash off the dried vomit, then put what I could of it in the clothes washer. But when I returned to check on Anthony, he was holding the ripped cap of a new face wash, which I had ensured he would not see me hide behind my wife's shampoo and conditioner in the shower. That meant that, despite my efforts to attend to his needs and give him comfort, I either misunderstood how he felt, or his obsession was so strong that it took priority over how he was feeling.

In the end, I will probably have to bite the bullet and pay more for better bottles or containers. Maybe I will start a Go Fund Me account....