Today, Selah and I went to the grocery store. She got fussy about half-way through, so I gave her a bag of pecans (unopened) to chew on to keep her busy. Naturally, she got bored with it two minutes later and the bag (thankfully) ended up in the cart. I didn't even notice, because she was fairly happy for the rest of the shopping trip. When we got to the checkout I noticed the cashier struggling to straighten out the crumpled bag to scan the barcode. Once it scanned she wiped her hands on her Harris Teeter uniform. Immediately my mind flew to the image of my sweet one with the bag in her mouth. I decided to 'fess up. Here was our conversation:
Me: "Oooo, I'm so sorry. I should have wiped that off."
Her (a little puzzled): "Yeah, it had something wet on it."
Me (apologetically): "Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn't tell you what it was. I don't know if you would want to know or not, but I was letting my daughter chew on that to keep her happy."
Her (trying to hide that she's grossed out): "Oh (nervous laughter). Yeah, it was a little slimy like the stuff that's sometimes on the outside of a package of chicken."
Me (relieved): "Oh, well there you go! At least it wasn't as gross as raw chicken juice on your hands!" I could tell she was actually trying to weigh which would be more gross: raw chicken liquid or baby's spit.
Her (imagining herself in a few years, and wondering if she really wanted kids) "Wow, I can't wait to have a baby and have its spit on me."
I coudn't help but laugh when I left the grocery store. Not at her, at me. How far I've come from the time I was in her shoes. The time that I thought baby spit was gross. I remember an article that I read when Jackson was a baby (and I had the time and inclination to read parenting articles for fun) in which a mom was talking about her transition from being a total germaphobe to casually, almost absently-mindedly saying to her kids, "Will you please stop licking the cat?" It's so true! I think when you give birth (and I do count c-sections as "giving birth") a lot of things change. One of those things is your gross-o-meter gets shifted. I always wondered how my mom could do stuff like clean up my puke off our van's dashboard when I got carsick. Now I know the secret: she had no choice! What was she going to do? Leave it there until it dried up and blew away? When something gross happens (I find a booger wiped in an odd place or a streak of poop on the tub from where Jackson didn't wipe well enough and then leaned against the tub while pulling up his underwear), I usually just shrug and get to cleaning. There's no use in making a big fuss for no one but God to see. Just bite the bullet and move on. I still don't look forward to Selah smearing her slobbery hand all over my face, but it takes a lot to really repulse me. I love my kids, and everything that goes with them!
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