Cautionary Tale unnecessary

In my continued series of posts from Greetings Little One leading up to my daughter’s third birthday tomorrow, a post from January 17, 2009. It should be noted that in Clara’s three years of life, she has put exactly one item into her mouth that was not food.

Despite my genetic contribution, we somehow have a little girl who listens and obeys the rules with stunning regularity.

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Cautionary Tale

Scott was telling me about his daughter, Grace, yesterday. Specifically, he was describing her habit of putting anything she can find into her mouth: rocks, toys, dog food, etc. In subsequent conversations with friends, it appears that this is more common than I once thought.

My friend Cindy’s son, Nathan, was actually found eating cat food this morning.

Your uncle Jeremy ate the cheese out of the Kibbles and Bits when he was little, but that was only after I tricked him into doing so.

But Grace seems to take this propensity to eat non-food items rather seriously. Scott told me about a time when he noticed that she had something, which he thought was a rock, rolling around in her mouth. Springing into action, he opened her mouth, reached in with a finger, and located the foreign object.

As he removed it from her mouth, it flew away.

It had been an insect that she was keeping alive within her mouth.

As the kids say, don’t go there, little one. As part of wilderness survival training, Daddy has eaten his share of insects in his life, some cooked and some raw, but I swallowed the little buggers.

Keeping something alive in your mouth long enough to have it fly away once removed is just not cool.