A hand in the bucket

2 nights ago Preston acquired what I thought was a splinter in the palm of his right hand. The area was red and puffy, and it looked like there was a tiny foreign object embedded in a small cut. I tried to move it around and get a better look at it, but Preston got pretty sensitive and it was clearly painful, so he started resisting my attempts to examine it. I made an urgent factime call to Dr. Uncle Mike to pose the question, how does one remove a splinter from a 3 year old? and was advised to try doing a handsoak to see if that would soften the area up and expose the splinter better. Well, long story short, it didn't work, because after an hour-long soak, Preston still wouldn't let me look at it for more than 3 seconds without pulling away. However, apparently the practice of soaking his hands became appealing to him, because I incidentally have left the bucket of water sitting on the living room floor for the past 2 days, and each night he has sat down and decided to do a hand soak. Here he is tonight, after asking me, "Mom, can I watch the super-giant TV and sit in my chair?"