Things in Kids Mouths

I’m constantly amazed at what my children put in their mouths. And their ears. And their nose.  My 2 year old daughter likes to put her big sisters Shopkins in her mouth. Granted some of them look like ice cream people, but really. And she keeps doing it. It’s not like they’re flavored. Why?

When my older two were little they would chew on their cribs. Not just a little.  In some parts they went through the varnish and down to the wood. I remember one time I went in and one of them had brown flecks of wood stain all over her mouth.

I don’t understand what makes kids want to do this, other than when they’re teething. It can’t taste good. It’s not like they’re hungry when they’re doing it.

The same girl who tried eating her crib also fed her brother raw pork fat once. I had trimmed a roast but hadn’t put the fat directly into the garbage, so it was on the cutting board. Apparently my son told his sister he was hungry, and being the resourceful 5 year old she is, she grabbed him some food. When I saw him and asked what he was eating, he said meat. GAG.

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A stray raisin that I missed when I swept the floor is fair game if I can’t snatch it out of their hand. My son actually asked if what he was holding was an old raisin, and when I said I think so, he popped it in his mouth. I have to tell at least one child per day to take something out of their mouth. Food, toys, rocks; really the possibilities are endless.

One of my older girls also went through a phase of chewing on her hair. I wouldn’t have cared really, except the section she chewed on would get all matted and if she had just finished eating her hair would get extra gross.

However, the all-time winner in this game of what-terrible-thing-can-I-put-in-my-mouth is my son, who decided he was going to eat our Christmas lights. Christmas lights you say? Yes, glass Christmas lights.

Some good friends of ours have Christmas lights on their patio for when they sit out at night, and I liked the idea so much I wanted to recreate it at our house. So I got some of our old Christmas lights and hooks to hang them up. Unfortunately, two strands didn’t completely light up, and they sat outside on a table waiting for me to come back and fix them.

Along comes my son. He’s playing with his twin sister nicely in the backyard, but I happen to glance outside and it looks like he has something in his mouth. Now, I can’t tell you why my brain went to the lights, but somehow I just KNEW what this crazy kid of mine had done. Sure enough, I ran outside and asked him to open his mouth. He ran away from me like all good kids who are trouble do. I get him and tell him to spit it out. Out comes 2 pieces of glass and then he hands me the chomped on light bulb. Whyyyyyyyy?

Luckily, he wasn’t hurt and somehow it didn’t cut his mouth, but I’m constantly wondering how humans have survived so long with the amount of potentially dangerous things they do to themselves as children.

Hopefully things will start calming down, but I have a feeling my Shopkin chewing daughter will follow in the footsteps of the hair chewing daughter. Plus it seems my son is a human goat, so it might be a long while yet.

Is there something I can even do for all this chewing? A friend of mine told me about necklaces that I could get that are specifically made for kids that like to chew on stuff, so those might be an option. Has anyone ever heard of something like that or tried it?

Jennifer at Sweet DiscordJennifer is a stay at home mom with two sets of twins. She copes with having four kids ages 5 and 3 with wine, desserts and cooking. But at the end of the day she wouldn’t trade her crazy life for anything. You can read more from Jennifer at Sweet Discord.