A lesson learned

As a parent, there are moments in your child's life that you will never forget. First, there are the milestones: your child's first tooth, their first time crawling, first steps, their first word. Then there are the kind of moments that stick in your memory simply because they're so absolutely gross you'll never forget them, like the numerous times I've been projectile vomited on, the time Haley spit up in my mouth while I was flying her over my head, or the time I was cooking dinner while Haley was playing in her jumper and I turned around to find her bouncing in a pile of her own poo. Take a guess at which kind of moment this post is about.

Yeah that's right, it's not the first kind.

The day started out innocently enough. It was Saturday evening, and my husband and I had just sat down to a dinner of pancakes and sausage. Let me pause and tell you how much I love breakfast for dinner, or "brinner" to be exact. There's nothing like a hot plate of syrupy, buttery pancakes and sausage. I could eat breakfast all day. Anyway, back to the story at hand, my daughter is quite the little beggar at dinner time...er, brinner time. Even though Patrick and I feed her before we eat, she somehow always has room to eat our food too. I think she may be under the impression that her food is an appetizer and our food is the main course.

Although she's not walking yet, she's mastered the art of pulling herself up and cruising to get to countless things she shouldn't, like the tissue box, the DVD player, and the occasional piece of mail that was left on the coffee table supposedly out of her reach. This particular night, she had just finished her appetizer and bellied up to the coffee table to beg for my pancakes. I should probably stop giving her my food, but she gives me this little Puss in Boots stare that I can't resist. And yes, I'm sure she will continue to use this against me for as long as she can. I gave in to her cute little pleas, but I couldn't manage to stab a piece of pancake small enough for her to eat. Using my fingers, I pinched off a piece of pancake with syrup and put it into Haley's mouth, which left my fingers a little sticky.

Now, what I've neglected to tell you is that I forgot to get myself a napkin, which isn't such a big deal until you take into account the other thing that I had forgotten.

What I had also forgotten, was that my daughter had had a cold for the past 2 weeks, which left her with a runny nose. Since I was napkinless, I decided to just lick what I thought was syrup off of my fingers and continue on my merry, pancake-eating way. And then it happened.

I put my daughter's boogers in my mouth.
What I thought was syrup wasn't syrup at all. when I put my fingers to her mouth to give her some of the pancake, I hadn't noticed that some snot from her runny nose got on my fingers, making me think I had syrup on them. I immediately freaked out as my daughter looked on, innocently chewing on her pancake and getting ready for the next bite. Of course, my husband laughed hysterically when I told him what happened and then found me a tissue to spit in. No matter what I did, I could not get that (shudder) flavor out of my mouth.

So what have we learned in today's lesson kids? When you're a parent, you'll have lots of experiences that stick with you forever, both the good and the bad.

That, and always, ALWAYS carry a napkin.