Utah Ink

When I was a kid, I used to suck on chalk. Sometimes, when I'm pregnant, I still crave it.

Now, it couldn't be just any chalk. It was the heavy kind, the hard packed kind that was smooth all the way along it's thin, spherical surface. Anything that was too light, too white, or powdery just fell apart and was mushy.

Back in the day ('cause I'm SOOOO old and all.) my teachers would ask for a volunteer at the end of the day to go out to the playground and pound the erasers. I was always the first to raise my hand. I loved the smell. It was like wet cement when the sprinklers were on, or like the smell of the swamp cooler in the summer. To me, it smelled cold.

I tried crayons once. It was one of the extra fat ones. It was red. And it was tasteless. Not to mention, it left residue on my teeth.

I never cared to try glue, and I thought the kids who ate it and smelled it were kind of out of their minds.

So, I guess I should, in the very slightest, understand my daughter's innate desire to taste everything. I mean, I spent the first 10 years of my life sucking on pieces of chalk. But I don't. I really just don't get it.

My kids love apples. Apples are their favorite snack and they would eat them three times a day if I would let them. They also love markers. I think Crayola is stellar. Their markers are washable, and come in as many colors as the crayons do. They also come in something adorable called "Pip Squeaks"

They are only about 3 or 4 inches long, and, as I have learned, they fit easily into a child's pocket. I found this out because one afternoon, I had all my kids plopped on the couch to watch a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I gave them each a shiny green apple to eat. Little did I know that Scarlet had shoved a blue Pip Squeak into her pocket before hand.

When I checked on my little mcnuggets ten minutes later, Scarlets mouth, cheeks, and chin were stained a deep blue, and streaks of it had dripped down her throat and over her shirt collar with the juice of her apple.

Scarlet had colored her entire apple blue with her little marker before she ate it.

It's okay though- she sometimes mistakes markers for chapstick, and draws all over her mouth, and sometimes she mistakes chapstick for food. I have several tubes of chapstick (Lip Smackers Dr. Pepper is my FAVE) with little bite marks in it because it was just so delectable, she couldn't stand it, and just had to sink her teeth in.

All over the place, markers are missing their tips, crayons are gnawed on, erasers are shredded on the pensil, and Scarlets hands and mouth are consistently vivid with the blessedly non-toxic inks and waxes of things that can't really taste that good.