Not In Your Mouth Please

"Not in your mouth, please, William."

"That's dirty, Owen, please don't put it in your mouth."

"Ew! What IS that?! Spit it out! Spit it out!"

Just a little sampling of my refrain from this morning.

Owen and Will and I went back to the Early Years Centre today. You may recall from a previous post that the Early Years Centre is a provincially run drop in program for parents and their kiddies, where you can play and chat and learn and explore in a happy, friendly atmosphere. I had stopped going after that one disastrous visit where I ended up spending the entire hour and a half chasing the twins around, sweating and looking like an unfit parent. It was just too tiring and too embarrassing. There are only so many times you can hear other people say "Boy! You sure have your hands full!" and "You're really sweating. Are you okay?!" Listen, you'd be sweating too if you had two cheeky monkeys hell bent on chewing every wire, every soother, every hand that wasn't theirs. And at opposite sides of the room to boot.

But I thought it was maybe time to go back, see how we handled it now that the boys are able to listen a little more and like to play with toys rather than just crawling as fast as they can for anything that looks vaguely dangerous. So off we went this morning to the drop-in, where 0-6 year olds can play in the same room and parents can chat. The boys were in awe of all the big kids as well as all the cool toys, including a little kitchen with plastic food and plates. There were lots of little figurines and balls and things in tubs to play with too.

Owen kind of stood in shock for about two minutes, his mouth agape at the fabulousness and the newness of it all. I wondered if he would cry, as he sometimes does when he's overwhelmed, but no, he just headed for the toy phones and started to chat away to whoever he was calling. I think it was long distance - he dialed for a long time.

Will was equally amazed at all the toys he could play with, but seemed quite keen on the plastic food and the kitchen. He stood in front of the tub of food and just kept taking out the various vegetables and fruit and dropping them on the floor, pausing in his task only to sample the plastic grapes and pizza.

And this leads me to my refrain. I swear my boys licked every toy in that room. If I write about them suffering from some horrid cold in two days time we all know why. I spent most of the morning leaping over other small people to get to my two before they sampled something else. I scanned the room to see if any other kids were slurping on the toys and I'm pretty sure that none of the other children were slobbering on anything but themselves.

Now here comes the paranoid/neurotic part. You may have noticed that I feel the need to exude confidence and exceptional parenting abilities in public, even when my mind is frantically telling me I'm doing it all wrong and shouldn't I consult those parenting books again? It might have become apparent from earlier posts that I'm keen on having people think "Wow, she's got twins but she just takes it all in her stride. Those are such well behaved kids. I bet she never gets sweaty and flustered. She must be someone incredibly smart with a knack for always wearing just the right clothes and never having blotchy make-up." What can I say? I'm vain and I'm needy and I'm human. I like to look like a good parent even when I'm feeling like someone should probably call Child Services.

So as Owen and Will proceeded to leave a trail of DNA in their wake, I felt that all eyes were on my boys as they did the unthinkable. All the parents in the room held their breath every time either boy sucked away on a Little People toy or a building block. One mother kindly informed me that there was a bin for depositing toys that needed to be cleaned of germs. I looked around, saw the trail of slime and wondered if I could fit all the toys in the entire room in said bin. And the boys too, maybe? Eventually it got to the point where, as I removed a toy from one small mouth, I'd see a well-meaning parent gently removing something from a similar small mouth across the room, saying "Icky". I'm assuming they meant that eating the toy was icky, not that my son was icky (Omigod, are my sons icky?!).

After about an hour and a half of drooling from the boys and chasing from me, I finally decided we'd had enough play for the morning and it was time to go home. It was a good morning, a successful visit to a new place, despite the germ inhalation. I think most of the parents eventually realised we were a lost cause and accepted our slovenly behaviour. More importantly, I accepted it and realised a few wet toys weren't going to make us the pariahs of the playroom. I mean, neither of them pooped in the sandbox, right? No one was bitten or smacked or pantsed, so really what's a bit of saliva?