It is amazing the situations you find yourself in when you are a parent that you NEVER thought you would be in. The words you professed that would never eek from your mouth often bellow over and over again. And then there are the words that you absolutely never imagined would utter from your lips such as......"What is in your mouth? Come here...what is in your mouth? Is that SUPER GLUE IN YOUR MOUTH??????"
Yup. You read that right. Recently we had quite a sticky situation in our house. The exact course of events has not been completely extrapolated as of yet. However, we have come to a couple of conclusions. One, our daughter is like a crow. She will take anything little and miniature and claim it as her own and find a home for it somewhere in her room. Her stealth like ability has this happen all long before you even realize you are missing it. Second, a tube of Super Glue Gel looks a lot like a tube of lip gloss to a two and a half year old. And three, never say never.
I can admit that yes there was Super Glue in our kitchen. Yes, there was a small child that could easily get a hold of it. However upon closer analysis, the tube was completely brand new and had never been opened. I guess 2 figured that we just needed some help in that department and her teeth are pretty strong. By the time I was notified, via screams and tears, the damage had been done. She realized that this situation was not as glamorous as her little self thought it would be. The gloss was less glossy and a lot more sticky. She needed help, and fast!
I quickly picked her up and moved into the well lit bathroom when I realized we weren't just dealing with a minor finger pinch. She was crying, salivating, and had a whitish substance all over. It was on her hands, lips, cheeks, teeth, roof of her mouth, and tongue. Evidently the sharp pearly whites of a two year old do wonders for a quick and forceful opening of a tube of Super Glue. (Take note for future encounters of such magnitude)
If you can imagine taking a white candy of tootsie roll consistency and stuffing about two of them in your mouth. Then allowing said candy confection to harden on your bottom teeth, you can get a pretty vivid picture of what we were dealing with. All the while 2 just kept crying and saying it tasted so yucky. This was no tootsie roll folks. It was not quite what she thought she was going to be experiencing at the onset of her great idea.
So, once we realized what we were dealing with I did what any good mother who lives in the age of technology does. I Googled it. I searched "Super Glue in the Mouth". I found 1,530,000 hits in .27 seconds. With this result I felt a little less freaked out, and more able to concentrate on righting this situation my little princess had put herself in. However, other questions started darting through my mind. How could I get this off her teeth? Would it take away her enamel? Would she have a silver grill adorning her mouth for her third birthday? Not quite the tea party theme I was going for.
The first result in our google search was a case study about a child doing the same thing. Their solution was to use margarine beacause of its molecular make up being stronger than the glue. Wonderful. Perfect. Then I realized that with our 'healthy living' we have no margarine. It is basically plastic so I am not feeding it to my family. Back to square one.
Then I found another person who posted on Ask.com. Now mind you, this is the exact site I had just discussed with my middle school students that you DON"T use as a source for a research paper because you don't know who is posting the information and how valid it is. At this point in our crisis, however, I pretty much ate my own words and felt that if someone was reading and commenting on such a site, they probably had good cause and similar experience. So, trick number two.....Vaseline. We had it; we were going to give it a whirl.
Lucky for us, the "E.R. doctor" who posted, or who ever it was, actually was RIGHT. The Vaseline helped to break down the cement like bond. Along with the salty tears and constant rabid frothy state of 2's mouth, I was able to get the majority of the glue from her lips, tongue, and teeth. I was literally chipping off the glue like a stone cutter with huge hunks falling out of her mouth. The roof of her mouth was a challenge, and she did have to go to bed with a slight film still on the side of her mouth. The Vaseline broke this down, eventually but it was not pleasant.
After the crisis was averted, the discussion began. We talked about how that was very dangerous. How we don't put things in our mouth that are not food. Of course she had no clue how horribly tragic this event could have been. The what if's flew in the mind of this mother. I am thankful that the worst of it was the horrible taste she had in her mouth.
Yet, one thing keeps coming back to me. She had a plan, an idea, and for the most part she thought it was going to turn out great. She got this, and was going to do that. Period. End of story. But when her plan did not turn out the way she thought it would, she found herself in quite a different situation. She could have hid, and tried to keep it from me. She could have tried to fix it herself, but this would have led to getting more things 'stuck' and involved than needed to. None of those solutions would have worked. So she did what she felt the inner need to do, call for help. She called out to the one who she knows will drop what ever it is to come to her aid.
I pray that as 2 gets older, she can still remember that regardless of the sticky situations she finds herself in, that I will always be there to help her out. I will do what ever is in my power to free her from what she has gotten herself into, even if it makes me mad and disappointed in her choices. I will love her for always. She is my girl, sticky and sweet all rolled into one.
Yup. You read that right. Recently we had quite a sticky situation in our house. The exact course of events has not been completely extrapolated as of yet. However, we have come to a couple of conclusions. One, our daughter is like a crow. She will take anything little and miniature and claim it as her own and find a home for it somewhere in her room. Her stealth like ability has this happen all long before you even realize you are missing it. Second, a tube of Super Glue Gel looks a lot like a tube of lip gloss to a two and a half year old. And three, never say never.
I can admit that yes there was Super Glue in our kitchen. Yes, there was a small child that could easily get a hold of it. However upon closer analysis, the tube was completely brand new and had never been opened. I guess 2 figured that we just needed some help in that department and her teeth are pretty strong. By the time I was notified, via screams and tears, the damage had been done. She realized that this situation was not as glamorous as her little self thought it would be. The gloss was less glossy and a lot more sticky. She needed help, and fast!
I quickly picked her up and moved into the well lit bathroom when I realized we weren't just dealing with a minor finger pinch. She was crying, salivating, and had a whitish substance all over. It was on her hands, lips, cheeks, teeth, roof of her mouth, and tongue. Evidently the sharp pearly whites of a two year old do wonders for a quick and forceful opening of a tube of Super Glue. (Take note for future encounters of such magnitude)
If you can imagine taking a white candy of tootsie roll consistency and stuffing about two of them in your mouth. Then allowing said candy confection to harden on your bottom teeth, you can get a pretty vivid picture of what we were dealing with. All the while 2 just kept crying and saying it tasted so yucky. This was no tootsie roll folks. It was not quite what she thought she was going to be experiencing at the onset of her great idea.
So, once we realized what we were dealing with I did what any good mother who lives in the age of technology does. I Googled it. I searched "Super Glue in the Mouth". I found 1,530,000 hits in .27 seconds. With this result I felt a little less freaked out, and more able to concentrate on righting this situation my little princess had put herself in. However, other questions started darting through my mind. How could I get this off her teeth? Would it take away her enamel? Would she have a silver grill adorning her mouth for her third birthday? Not quite the tea party theme I was going for.
The first result in our google search was a case study about a child doing the same thing. Their solution was to use margarine beacause of its molecular make up being stronger than the glue. Wonderful. Perfect. Then I realized that with our 'healthy living' we have no margarine. It is basically plastic so I am not feeding it to my family. Back to square one.
Then I found another person who posted on Ask.com. Now mind you, this is the exact site I had just discussed with my middle school students that you DON"T use as a source for a research paper because you don't know who is posting the information and how valid it is. At this point in our crisis, however, I pretty much ate my own words and felt that if someone was reading and commenting on such a site, they probably had good cause and similar experience. So, trick number two.....Vaseline. We had it; we were going to give it a whirl.
Lucky for us, the "E.R. doctor" who posted, or who ever it was, actually was RIGHT. The Vaseline helped to break down the cement like bond. Along with the salty tears and constant rabid frothy state of 2's mouth, I was able to get the majority of the glue from her lips, tongue, and teeth. I was literally chipping off the glue like a stone cutter with huge hunks falling out of her mouth. The roof of her mouth was a challenge, and she did have to go to bed with a slight film still on the side of her mouth. The Vaseline broke this down, eventually but it was not pleasant.
After the crisis was averted, the discussion began. We talked about how that was very dangerous. How we don't put things in our mouth that are not food. Of course she had no clue how horribly tragic this event could have been. The what if's flew in the mind of this mother. I am thankful that the worst of it was the horrible taste she had in her mouth.
Yet, one thing keeps coming back to me. She had a plan, an idea, and for the most part she thought it was going to turn out great. She got this, and was going to do that. Period. End of story. But when her plan did not turn out the way she thought it would, she found herself in quite a different situation. She could have hid, and tried to keep it from me. She could have tried to fix it herself, but this would have led to getting more things 'stuck' and involved than needed to. None of those solutions would have worked. So she did what she felt the inner need to do, call for help. She called out to the one who she knows will drop what ever it is to come to her aid.
I pray that as 2 gets older, she can still remember that regardless of the sticky situations she finds herself in, that I will always be there to help her out. I will do what ever is in my power to free her from what she has gotten herself into, even if it makes me mad and disappointed in her choices. I will love her for always. She is my girl, sticky and sweet all rolled into one.
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| Looks like the perfect size lip gloss for our precious princess! |
It's just as funny now as this morning. :) I'm so glad it wasn't any worse than it was though, she's very lucky! I think you nailed it though, we all hope that our children remember they can come to us w/any of life's "sticky situations." I too hope that never changes.
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