Looking at Luke sitting near me in the pew at church, I noticed that he had some remnants of this morning’s donut in the crevices around his mouth. My daily purse would have been stocked with something to clean him up, but my church purse is a little more sparsely supplied.
What I did find in there, however, included a small pharmacy of emergency anti seizure meds, an emory board, an inhaler, vitamins and essential oils, a temporary tattoo, anti itch cream, a curling iron, broken eyeglasses, a sausage link I saved for the dogs from breakfast, throat lozenges, makeup, deoderant, a nail clipper, a hair brush and a couple of restaurant gift cards given to us (me and Ryan) by our older children for Father’s Day and Christmas.
Since I didn’t have any tissues available, I did what mother’s have been doing for centuries: I licked my thumb and scrubbed the corner of his mouth.
Ryan’s eyes grew wide with disgust and he looked at me aghast. “Oh my God, you have become my mother!”
Well, desperate times call for desperate measures – they always have and they always will. Someday it will be my children licking clean the faces of their own children, but until then I will make sure to have tissues with me wherever I go!
