Lick It Like A Lollipop

What is up with kids licking stuff?

I realize that we need to hone our sense of taste at an early age, but sometimes it’s a little redonk, you know what I’m sayin’?

When the kiddos are mere babes, it’s kind of cute to watch them lick stuff and put stuff in their mouths.

Like when they’re learning to eat solid foods.

I was not a huge fan of my kids picking stuff up off the floor and licking them. Because we have the world’s most prolifically shedding dog. And if the target of any Baby Licking is even the slightest bit moist and falls on the floor, it comes up disguised as a shag carpet. Here, Boy Wonder considers licking his blankie, then decides that he doesn’t have the motor skills to pull out all the dog hair that will end up in his mouth.

There are the infamous teething biscuits. Which are NOT cute. They’re the gunkiest, wettest, gooeyest, smearable pieces of crap I’ve ever seen. Mr. Zwieback or Mr. Gerber or whatever marketing genius came up with those little gems should never be allowed to make a baby product again. Disgusting.

As soon as the first vestiges of teeth begin to poke through those tiny gums of theirs, their world instantly becomes One Giant Teething Toy.

Nothing escapes their savage bite: stuffed animals, washcloths, cell phones, metal keys, paintball guns, table saws, tampons. They’re all good. In fact, the one thing my kids didn’t really love to bite when they were teething? Their actual FOOD. Hello? Another one of God’s cruel parenting jokes.

When you get a new puppy, all  of the What To Expect When You Get Sucked In To Buying A Fuzzy Puppy and Now You Have A Canine Destroying Your House And Not Sleeping Through The Night guides will tell you that some puppy breeds will chew a lot on wood.

You’ll wake up in the morning and find that one of your kitchen chairs now has only one leg. Good times.

But they never tell you that your human BABY will replicate some of these doglike behaviors. Ask a teething baby to choose between gnawing on a cut up grape or a coffee table, and they’ll go coffee table every time.

And so it goes for years and years. Even as babies become toddlers,  they move from instinctually acting like a puppy to CHOOSING to act like a puppy. They no longer have a physiological need to chew tables and chairs, they just do because Playing Doggie is super fun and annoying to mom.

And gross. So, so gross. We shriek in horror over the idea that our precious, virgin-mouthed kids might pick up some horrible flesh-eating bacteria off the table.

Because we know how often we DON’T clean that table. Ahem.

We’d sooner face a firing squad than have Chazz or Kourtnee be sick. So we resolve ourselves to be Super Vigilant Mom Types Who Sterilize Every Last Item Our Children Might Chew.

And then we wipe those tables down with? Cleaners full of strange-sounding chemicals. Some that might even be poisonous. Some that smell like Lemonheads – you know that faux lemon scent I’m talking about.

Seriously. We get rid of one perceived poison by cleaning it with another.

And somehow we take comfort in the fact that our kids are now licking and chewing Faux Lemon Scented Poison instead of Regular Germs.

Have no fear, though. There IS a better way.

There is a wood cleaner you can use every day because there’s no wax in this shizz.

It has no toxic chemicals.

It doesn’t use aerosol.

It conditions AND cleans your wood. It gets rid of dirt, greasy smears, and other General Kitchen Schmutz. Like kiddie tongueprints.

So when you clean with it, you’re not replacing one poison for another.

It’s method’s Wood for Good Daily Clean. And it’s one of my very favoritest method products.

Because it doesn’t smell faux. It smells all fresh and almond-y.

I love almonds.

Be prepared for a lot of table-licking.

Of course, if they do lick this stuff, method tells me that it’s okay. Poison Control won’t be telling you to rush to the hospital to have Chazz’s stomach pumped. Because it’s a plant-based formula.

You can let your kids be all doggy-like and just laugh it off and flit around on your tippy-toes because your house smells like almond cake.

Just don’t let your kids see when YOU try to lick the table.

Not that I’ve ever done that.

disclosure: the fine peeps at method indulge my love of really well-designed cleaning products in my house by letting me be a method maven. that means they paid me for this post and give me product samples to try out. they did not, however, pay me to lick my table.

 

 

 

 

Tagged as: #cleanhappy, method