That's No Trash Can, That's My Purse!!

I live in a house of gum chewers. ALL of my kids love to blow bubbles, or at least try. They like scanning the candy aisle for any strange, yet exciting, new flavors. I personally think Orbit has the market on weirdness. "Mango Surf", "Maui Melon Mint", "Cinnamint" and my personal fave, "Mint Mojito"-- which is apparently a seasonal offering.

The gum chewing is new to my littlest darling daughter. She has been sniffing and walking around licking it for years. But recently, she thought she'd chew on it -- just to see what would happen. This is actually a good thing for her. Considering she still eats like a toddler. Only utilizing her 2 front teeth to eat her food. Chewing gum is actually forcing her to use her back teeth and her jaws a bit. So, from an OT perspective.. it's all good.

Before I realized that Mads was actually chewing the gum and no longer just licking and talking to it, I kept finding gum all over the floor. I naturally assumed the culprit to be the most prolific gum chewer of the family (Hays). I would drag her out of her room (using my best your in trouble voice and throwing in a few stomps for effect), lead her to the offending sticky, smashed glob and tell her to throw it in the garbage can or potty. Uncharacteristically a good sport, I assumed this proved her guilt.

As I discovered last night, Madden is my offender. She must have been paying attention to all my rantings about gum being thrown away when you are done. In her little mind, she heard "Throw gum away." And she decided to put it back where she got it in the first place -- my purse. While waiting for the transfer of power from me to my hubs so I could go to book club, I thought, "Hey! I'll clean out my purse." I pull out the iPod. "What?! Is that?" Pulling it almost into my eyeball to get a closer look, "Is that gum? On my iPod?!" I grab another handful from the depths of my purse, "Why is this hair clip so sticky?!" Squinting. Double squinting. "Oh. My. God. That's GUM in there." It was like the mini hair clip (the kind that sorta looks like a claw with teeth that you squeeze at the top and the "mouth" opens) was holding a gum ball and the gum was oozing through the teeth. With more zeal and passion, I empty out my purse. Turns out gum was on just about on all of my *gasp* lip glosses. It even glued my ear buds into a giant, twisted mass.

I didn't count how many pieces of gum had been released into my purse. I was too scared to lift the covered cardboard stability piece at the bottom.. all kinds of nasty things go under there to hide anyway. My hubby showed up. It was time to transfer the power. Go to my book club and crack some ice.