Friday, Aug. 27, 2010: ABC gum

We bid farewell to Granny Marilyn today. She was very sad to go. Gavin is a heartbreaker like that. I predict a lifelong pattern.

The highlight of today was when Amanda gave Gavin her gum. I mean, it was an accident, but a 13 month old really shouldn't have chewing gum. I think that to get the full experience you really need to have more than eight teeth and at least some of your teeth should be molars. I'm just saying. Gavin isn't exactly Wrigley's target audience. Also there's the whole choking hazard thing, which looms a little larger than chewing satisfaction when it comes to the baby demographic. Thankfully Gavin did not choke. Nor did he chew the gum. In fact, I'm not sure he ever knew it was in his mouth at all. Its tenure there was brief. Not because I, in a mom-of-the-year moment, swept the offending glob out with a hooked index finger -- though I certainly did try. But there was nothing to be swept, so quickly did he swallow it.

So how did Gavin end up with his Aunt Amanda's ABC gum (that's "already been chewed" for anyone who has never gone through elementary school)? Well, Amanda came over today to see Gavin and take the dogs for a walk (her two dogs, Lily and Charlie, and my dog, Henri). After the walk Amanda was hanging out and playing with Gavin in the living room and she lifted him upside down and kind of swung him back and forth a little -- he loves this kind of thing. So from his upside down hanging position she put him on the couch where she proceeded to put her face close to his. Both of them were laughing quite hard, because of how being Upside Down Baby (Gavin's official title while in this position) is hilarious, and Amanda's gum fell out of her mouth and into Gavin's. She sat him up and said something like, "D'Anne, my gum fell into Gavin's mouth," and I, who was sitting right next to Gavin but did not see the gum exchange, hooked my finger and went spelunking for foreign objects just like I learned in CPR training (the rest of the training, however, is very fuzzy, so thank god he wasn't choking). But there was nothing but the slippery insides of his cheeks and his fat tongue. No gum. He was relatively unfazed besides seeming a little confused about why I was poking around in his mouth.

Amanda is laughing hysterically at this point and not because she thinks it's funny so much as she's totally freaked out. "Oh my god, I thought I just killed your baby," she said. But thankfully she didn't. He's fine as far as I can tell. My theory is that because Amanda dropped her gum from her laughing mouth it was probably covered in saliva, which means it was well lubricated as it fell into Gavin's also laughing and frequently drool-filled mouth and thus he swallowed it without even realizing it had happened. And no, gum doesn't sit undigested in your stomach for seven years or tie your intestines together or whatever dumb thing you learned in grade school. Yes, it's true that the human body can't digest gum, but it can take gum along on an exciting trip of the digestive system. In other words, gum should be appearing in Gavin's diaper in a couple of days. And then I can return it to Amanda.

Speaking of diapers, have you ever seen a horse take a dump? Gavin, Stacy, and I went to the zoo today and got to see it happening up close and personal (we were about four feet away from the horse). It's not something I've ever wanted to see, but I now cannot unsee it. Decorum doesn't allow me to describe it further, but I'm sure there's probably a video on YouTube or something if you look. Or you could go to a farm. I mean, if you're dying to see it and all.

We also saw prairie dogs, which Gavin was not very interested in. He calls all of the animals at the zoo "dog" but he didn't bother with these little guys. He did call the pigs "dog" though. We also walked through the Outback Adventure, which in theory could mean live interaction with kangaroos, but really was just walking down a dusty dirt path while peering at kangaroos sacked out in the shade at the outskirts of their enclosure. We did get to see what I think was a wallaby hop on by, but that was the extent of our Outback excitement. That and the hi-larious doofy dad in line behind us making Outback Steakhouse jokes. Every time we go to the zoo it makes me happy that Gavin is a vegetarian.