to lick, or not to lick, that is the question....

I let out a stifled scream. While my son tried on jeans in the dressing room of a local store, I looked up to see my toddler licking the mirror. He smiled at himself admiring his tongue as it squished around on the glass. I tried not to dry heave at the very thought of his mouth on its germ covered surface. What would possess him to lick a mirror in a public place? But then I remembered the young boy I watched once at Disneyland. While standing in the maddeningly slow line, he systematically licked his way down the metal dividing pole as his family shuffled along waiting for their turn at Autopia. The way I see it, it’s like Ben & Jerry, peanut butter and jelly and dandelions in my yard. Kid’s mouths and filth will always be together. It’s hard to have one without the other.

I’m one of those crazy moms who wipe down every touchable/lickable surface in a shopping cart with the disinfecting wipes they’re now so handily providing. For some inexplicable reason, children can not resist the allure of putting their mouth on a shopping cart. I want to push the cart along with a wipe in each hand, protecting me from the handle, and my children want to lick the cart.

Kids come in two categories: lickers or eaters. Some kids are both. Your average kid, for example, who wouldn’t dream of putting a green bean in his mouth, may see no problem at all with licking a toilet paper dispenser at a Gas station bathroom. Or possibly eating a jelly bean he found on the floor of that same bathroom. But a green bean? Get serious.

I’ve been parenting for a little over fourteen years and I’ve made my fair share of calls to poison control. Turns out tulip bulbs and Desitin can be eaten without any adverse effects. Good to know.

The “10 second rule” is useful. However, I have limits on the application of this rule. A cookie on the kitchen floor? Fine. A french fry on McDonald’s floor? Not fine. Although technically, the floor at McDonalds is most likely cleaner than mine, since it probably gets mopped once a day. My floor? I’d rather not talk about it. My two year old daughter dropped candy on the floor of a park pavilion during our Easter picnic. Before I could even spit out the words, “Don’t even think about it!” she scooped up the candy and popped it in her mouth. Definitely not fine.

I have a vivid memory of eating a small pink crayon chunk when I was a child. Why exactly did I eat a crayon chunk? Obviously, I thought it was candy. I found it under the couch in our living room. Thinking I had scored a contraband candy victory, I snuck it into my mouth, only to discover that it was Crayola flavored wax, not strawberry flavored sugar. I can still taste the wax to this day.

Perhaps that’s why kids eat gross stuff. There’s some kind of confusion in their mind. They see a little black Rolly Polly bug and think, “Score! A piece of candy is crawling on the patio! I better eat it before anyone else does.” I don’t know about you, but I prefer candy that doesn’t crawl.

2 Comments

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Ha, hah, too true.

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um, gross.

And true. Specially for my "M". Oh my. It's getting to where I just shrug every time I see something go into his mouth.

My question is. . . How OLD were you when you ate the crayon? You can remember it, which tells me you MAY not have been a toddler. Ha ha.

kt

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