Gum

Confession: I am 30 years old and I think, in my lifetime, I have maybe- maybe spit out 5 pieces of gum.  My general practice is to just swallow my gum once I have chewed it, or tired of the chewing all together. 

I do not believe the hype about your body not digesting gum, because if that were the case, I would have like 40 extra pound of undigested gum in my large intestine alone.  I'm sure it takes a bit longer to process than some other food items, like cucumbers or a bran muffin, but I mean if a dentists' drill bit will "process through my system" why not a hunk of Hubba Bubba?

I should mention, I'm not a huge gum chewer.  If I need to freshen up a bit I prefer to nosh on a York Peppermint Patty or Junior Mints- hell, I nosh on them even if I do not need to freshen up a bit. In the last few months Parker has also demonstrate a love for all things minty.  He also has a new hobby of copying everything I do.

See where this is going?

Parker has recently found out about gum.  I will give him a chiclet size morsel and he chews on it until it either falls out of his mouth into the oblivion that is the floor of my car, or he will swallow it and happily ask for another.  Honestly, the pieces I give him are so small that they are more likely to get stuck in between his baby teeth than be any sort of choking hazard.

That is until he found another use for it...

Notice 5 Stride gum wrappers.  This was a new pack of gum, I could only find 5 wrappers.  This is not good.

That blur is Pman running away from the pack of gum and toward the kitchen.  RUN-NING. He does have about 2 unwrapped Stride sticks in his hot little hands. This photo captured his 8th (or so) trip from the pack of gum in the living, to the kitchen.

He is now hunched over a McDonald's Happy Meal toy.  It's a kitten in a basket.  It's a girl toy. It came in a Happy Meal I bought while holding P on my hip.  He was wearing the outfit you see here. Thanks Ronald, you've got some real cracker jacks working for you.

Here is the fruit of Mr. P's labor- a plastic cat nestled comfortably in a bed of made entirely of 10 or so shredded sticks of Stride gum.

The best 96 cents I ever spent.