This is an old one, pulled from the annals of this blog because, just now, I discovered chewing gum stuck to the drum of my washing machine. At the time I wrote this post, my children were 8, 6, and 4; now they are 17, 15, and 13. But they still like gum.
And I’m also re-posting this because my eldest is graduating from high school in just over a week, and I’m feeling, well, you know.
Boys make messes, yes? That’s what is traditionally assumed of them. Think about it. Which is worse– or messier, I should say? Snips, snails and puppy-dog tails, or sugar, spice and everything nice?
Never mind. Both of those could go Wrong. And what is a snip, anyway?
But let me just say that I’ve always assumed it was boys who make messes. Boys are the ones who don’t pull their socks up and can’t see the value in making a bed, who just don’t care if they get dirty, who even do it on purpose (ever watch football? or a guy sliding into second?). And they stand up to go to the bathroom (I’m not going to say Another Word about that). I’m not even remotely certain about this, but I’d put ready money on a bet that dread-locks started with boys, not girls, because boys don’t care about taking baths, being clean, or combing their hair. They’d like to believe that brushing one’s teeth once a day is adequate. And flossing? Never Mind.
I think my assumption was wrong. I have two sons and a daughter, and now I know.
When it comes to tearing things, my boys have it Hands Down. There is not a pair of pants or jeans in William’s drawer that doesn’t have rips in it. He went to choir practice recently in shorts that clearly revealed his Batman underwear, but he didn’t care (and I tried to talk him out of it. Really. I did). Everett wore his Batman costume to Death, so the rips and tears were unavoidable, but Still. His Spiderman bathing suit has a big hole in it where he was experimenting with scissors (I told him Only Paper), but he wears it anyway. And his favorite jeans are Absolutely Exhausted with holes. His favorite pair of army pants is becoming shorts all on their own because of the giant horizontal slashes at the knees.
I’m not really sure how they do it.
But they are not messy. Not really. No.
That trait would go to their sister, their little sister, who isn’t even five. Honestly, that child stains things almost as soon as she puts them on, and with things that don’t usually stain. All the commercials tell you that blood stains, and grass, and “ground-in dirt.” But how about orange juice? It doesn’t stain. Era has never mentioned orange juice in their commericals. Neither has Tide, or Spray n’ Wash. No, it doesn’t stain. What it does is ruin a perfectly good white shirt, even if you do treat it with Shout, and let it Sit.
My daughter has an adorable wardrobe. Really. I am perfectly happy to say this, because I am not bragging. Rather I am grateful, because almost all of her clothes are hand-me-downs from an exquisitely well-dressed (and very clean) little girl. They are gorgeous clothes, and Emma Grace goes about like a lily-of-the-field even on an ordinary day.
And this lily-of-the-field gets really, really Dirty.
I don’t know how many times I have asked her to please not wipe her mouth on her sleeve, but she does it anyway, despite the napkin lying next to her plate. Do you know the effect of syrup on the sleeve? It is Not Good. And the peanut butter on the hands can also, very nicely, be wiped off on the napkin that is lying next to her plate, but Look! the front of the shirt works so well. I know, I know. She should have the napkin in her lap. All I can say is: I’m Trying.
And so at the end of the day we are wearing our syrup and peanut butter. Here is some paint, and some ground-in chalk dust, and some spaghetti sauce, and the residue of sand, and marks of unknown provenance that are suspicious in color (greyish blue) but unscented.
Tonight it was gum. Oh my yes. She had been given bubble gum (who on earth would give bubble gum to a four-year-old?), and she has learned to blow bubbles, and she doesn’t mind At All when they pop all over her face. Which one had. And she knows how to blow bubbles, but she doesn’t know how to use slightly moistened gum to ever so gently blot the gum from her face. So she had traces of gum on both cheeks and her chin and her nose.
The bubble gum was pink, and so, for the most part, is her lovely face. As such, the bubble gum wasn’t really noticeable except where it rose to a kind of crest just under her right eye. But the bubble gum didn’t remain pink and therefore nearly invisible. No. Because Emma Grace was playing in the backyard on the playset and the swings, and soon the gum was dirty. A nice tan ring around her mouth and on her nose.
Before dinner I washed her face and tugged at the gum. But it wasn’t coming off, and I wasn’t messing with it. And soon after dinner she was out to play again, this time in the mulch pile that currently forms such a nice blockade to part of our driveway and makes such a fabulous hill. And dust from the mulch pile adhered itself to the bubble gum. You can imagine how nice that looked.
At bedtime I sat her down and rubbed Goo Gone all over the bubble gum on her face and it worked like a charm. Then I took her upstairs, and we took off her dress, which was black at the hem from mulch and sprinkled with light dustings of mulch Everywhere Else. She sat in the bathtub, and we washed her toes (there was mulch between them: “Dusty!” she said), and her feet, her legs, her face, her hands, her arms. We sprinkled baby powder on her and put on clean pajamas and brushed her teeth.
And then I brushed her hair.
Gum.
It was in three places in her hair, and I really and truly considered just cutting it out. Just cutting it right out and letting that be that. She’s only four, after all, and who cares if her hair isn’t perfect (remember what I said about being messy?). I got the scissors out, and brushed and brushed, and Isolated the Offending Areas.
But wouldn’t you know? A large part of the gum was at the ends of the bangs that we are trying to Grow Out. I won’t go into detail about this now, but let me just say that Emma Grace has a layer of long bangs that we are continually pulling back with hair clips because once upon a time her mother was Overzealous with the scissors and has been paying for it Ever Since.
There was No Way I was going to make those growing-out-bangs any shorter.
And so we tried what I have heard for years is effective on bubble gum in hair: peanut butter.
It works. It makes a Royal Mess, but it works.
She is fast asleep now. I am going upstairs in a moment to tuck her bunny into bed with her, having rescued it from its abandonment on the kitchen floor. I will kiss her, as always, and stroke her hair, tuck her in more snugly and inhale the sweet fragrance of powder and Emma Grace and, tonight, peanut butter. Is that what little girls are made of?
