Just For the Record, Peanut Butter Totally Works

My husband came home on Monday with a few leftover grab-bags from last week's MusicFest, which much to my children's delight contained gum. Lots and lots of gum. Oodles of it, even.

This means that for the last four days I have been delightfully serenaded by their never-ending gum snapping. Annoying yes, but not yet totally irritating. I mean, sure, I'm more than ready to staple their mouths shut, but not quite so fed up that I'm to the point of burning down Wrigley Headquarters.

But oh my, have I came close.

On Wednesday, we attended a pool party at a friends house. I packed enough pool toys to survive us the afternoon and the boys, well they packed enough gum to survive themselves until at least middle school. I didn't notice this of course, until we pulled into the driveway for the party (just like I didn't notice that my friend, who was having the POOL party actually had a pool. Like a real, live, in the ground, for real pool, yes I am a genius.) I informed the boys that if they showed up with that much gum, surely they'd be the most popular, but all the other moms would most likely hate me, so we should probably leave it in the car. I also threw in the "Everybody else is going to eat all of it and you won't have any more left" line, which worked like a charm.

We weren't on the pool patio for but two minutes when I heard my children start to giggle uncontrollably. I turned around to see that Hayden, in the process of spitting out a large wad of gum (I'm estimating at least three pieces combined) had somehow managed to get it stuck on the top of his head. No, not the side, or even the back, right. on. top. I hated to break up their little party, but the more they jumped around laughing about it, the more his hair was being engulfed in gum. I needed to act fast or my worst nightmare was going to come true - you know, that I'd have to buzz-cut his hair to get it out. And we all know how attached I am to my children's hair.

Luckily, the hostess quickly supplied me with a huge jar of peanut butter. I'd never tried the peanut butter route before, but I was willing to try anything to avoid a unnecessary haircut. So for the next twenty minutes I worked glob after glob of peanut butter through Hayden's hair (which feels as disgusting as it sounds, by the way), while he screamed bloody murder, not the just the first few minutes, but rather the entire time, and then some. Only one thought kept me company those excruciating moments as I tried to concentrate: I'm going to kill my husband. I mean, sure I'd given my children the permission to chew the gum, but he was the one who brought into the house in the first place, and you gotta nip the problem in the bud, right?

In what seemed like 2 hours later, the gum was gone. The peanut butter had gotten all of the gum out, almost every last bit. I was relieved, and so were all my friends, I'm sure, now that they no longer had to stomach my son's deafening screams. So I speak from experience, the peanut butter totally works. Next time this happens to you (or your children) whether it was because of an unfortunate wind or perhaps lazy spitting skills, I urge to to reach for the Jif before you reach for the scissors.

I've certainly learned my lesson. No more gum in this house, for uh, 24 hours. Because, you know, I just might have bought them some Hubba-Bubba yesterday.