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Sweet - By Bethany J. Royer, Mother of the
Munchkins
When my youngest was little, not that she’s actually anywhere near
grown or ancient, she’s seven, but when she was younger, just passed
the toddler years, she became quite the chewer.
That munchkin would chew on anything and everything, so it eventually
came as no surprise to find Barbie’s missing hands and feet, plastic
toy horse’s earless and I don’t even want to begin to tell you what
befell some rather unfortunate Pet Shops.
No matter what we did, that girl chewed and found a way to chew, and it
disturbed me to no end.
For the most part she outgrew it, if one can overlook her hair. While
the back grows long, the hairs nearest to her mouth are always the same
length, right at her mouth. The poor tendrils have no chance upon which
to grow because she destroys the ends with her teeth.
The trend seems to come and go and we’ve had long talks about the hair.
She’s managed to give the locks some peace these last few weeks but not
before she shared with me this rather illuminating story.
“I’m not the only one who chews hair.” She told me one fine day.
“Oh, really?”
“Sweet does, too.” (Sweet is the name I shall give this other child at
school for privacy sake.)
“Did she learn to chew her hair from you?”
“No, she doesn’t chew on her hair.”
“But you just said she chews on her hair.”
“She chews on my hair!”
That certainly took me by surprise as I pictured a little girl seated
next to my youngest at school, leaned far over in her chair so as to
chew the hair that wasn’t already preoccupied in my daughter’s mouth.
Upon many a query I soon came to find Sweet imbibes on the back of my
youngest’s hair as they sit together during circle time.
I explained to my Emma that this really needs to stop, but did so in
the nicest of ways because I could not stop laughing over the visual of
these two little girls as they chomped on the same head of hair.
The issue seemed to have cleared up, even for my little hair-chewer,
and the locks on either side of her face seem to have recovered,
slightly.
However, not that this has really helped the chewing, over all, as she
currently goes for the little piece of fabric that hangs off her coat
zipper as we walk to the bus stop every morning.
Where there is a will, there seems to be a way, for my youngest and it
perplexes me to no end.
“Em, you really need to stop with the chewing, you are going to ruin
your coat.”
Obviously her chewing on the little strap of her zipper is not going to
ruin the coat but I had to use something for back up that had some meat
to it.
“Sweet does the same thing!”
“She chews on her coat strap?”
“No, she chews on my coat, too!”
I should have seen that one coming.
The mother of two
munchkins, Bethany J. Royer is an independent contractor and writer
currently studying psychology with Florida Institute of
Technology. She is actively seeking a publisher for her first
completed novel while working on a memoir about her personal trials and
tribulations with divorce.
She blogs prolifically at
motherofthemunchkins.blogspot.com and can be reached at
themotherofthemunchkins@yahoo.com.
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