Into The Mouths of Babes

My sister-in-law Trish called me, I could tell by the sound of her voice that she had just experienced a horrific mommy moment. She finds it sporting to take all 3 of her boys to the grocery store to do the weekly shopping. They are ages 6, 5, and 2. Insanity. I will continue to try and talk her into joining me for a glorious grocery shopping experience, child free, at the 24 hour Wal•Mart at 5:30 am on Saturday mornings. I think she’s beginning to see the light at the end of the grocery checkout line.

You know those big fluffy grocery cart covers that are the best invention since antibacterial soap? Well, we both finally procured one by our third and final child. However, Trish may have shrunk hers a little in the wash and it doesn’t quite fit the way it ought to. On this particular shopping trip, her two year old stealthily figured out how to pull off one end of the cart cover while his mom was otherwise distracted wrangling the 5 and 6 year olds. He then found the perfect spot on the shopping cart handle. A spot other children likely fingered with their sticky, boogery, rear end scratching digits. Then with the speed and agility that only a two year old possesses, he began licking the exposed area. When his harried mom saw what he was doing, he gave her a big slobbery grin. Well, his older brothers found this hilarious, thusly egging him on. By the time Trish called me after arriving safely at home, all 3 boys were in time out. You moms know, that time outs are for the mommy. Not the children.

My kids are no different. Jensen has a taste for wall plug outlets. Yes, they are protected by kid safety covers. But still. Some of the things that I’ve fished out of my kid’s mouths have really unnerved me. And I have a pretty high gross-out threshold. My mother use to delight in revealing to me some of the things that I wrapped my lips around as a toddler. It seems that I had a taste for June bugs. They are crunchy. Maybe I was teething. I also, once, at the contents of my diaper. And used it to finger paint my bedroom walls. My mother said that she wouldn’t kiss me for 2 weeks. She did not have a high gross-out threshold. I also ate ashes from my 1960’s era parent’s cigarettes. They would know this because of the ash mustache that resulted. They had a particularly difficult time breaking me of this nasty habit. At her wits end, my mother told me that if I continued, I would turn the same color as the ashes. Which was, of course, black. This would come back to haunt her. We had a delightful babysitter named Dorothea, who was African-American. Suddenly, I felt a deep kinship with Dorothea, because the next time I saw her, I asked her if she had been eating ashes too. Evidently, my parents weren’t feeding me what I needed, or I wouldn’t have had to resort to these drastic measures.

My strong parenting resolve was recently tested at church last Sunday. We were in Fellowship Hall, affectionately known as “donut world”, after service. My two girls were quietly sitting at a table devouring eating a donut. Something else we swore we’d never give them. Tom was chasing after Jensen, as he rarely sits. I look over to see a look of horror on my germ conscious husband. I quickly saw why. With no warning, Jensen dropped to his belly and began licking the electrical outlet plate on the floor.

Okay moms, hit me with your best shot. What has your offspring done lately to raise your gross-out meter?