The One with the Regurgitated Raisin

For those of you who don't read picture-less posts, just walk on by. The fact of the matter is, I haven't been so great at photo documentation of late (unless you want to see the awesome full-body rash Eli has developed as an allergic reaction to his antibiotics), so if you want to wait around until the next time I feel like uploading pictures, I'll see you then. In the mean time, I did have one story I needed to record that should pretty well seal the deal that I wont be voted Mother of the Year, at least for 2009.

Last Monday afternoon I stopped into Old Navy and tried a couple of things on. Naturally, since I had both kids in tow, I used the "big daddy dressing room" to accommodate the shopping cart I was wheeling them in. While changing clothes, my cell phone rang and it was my newlywed sister, who lives out of town and who I greatly look forward to talking to, so I took the call, in spite of the lack of privacy. Meanwhile, Norah decided that she wanted to sit on the bench in the dressing room, as opposed to the cart. I complied (with the agreement that she wouldn't stray from the bench), in hopes of keeping her quiet long enough to have conversation with Amanda.

The next thing I know, Norah is off of the bench, asking me if she can eat a raisin she's discovered on the dressing room floor. I immediately give her my full attention and shriek "NO! Absolutely NOT!", resulting in a look of wide-eyed shock and bewilderment from my daughter that could only mean that she had already commenced consumption of said raisin. My fears were confirmed as she proceeded to spit the half-eaten, offending raisin back onto the dressing room floor next a couple of crushed goldfish crackers (also not ours), clearly in hopes that this would purge the wrong-doing. All I could think of was how many times I've watched kids spit things out of their mouths and onto the floor...and who was to say this was the first time THIS raisin had been regurgitated. Germs! Germs! How do you disinfect your child's mouth in situations such as these!? And seriously what was Norah thinking? She KNOWS better than to eat random trash on the floor, and at a public place with nasty, concrete floors where people drop their drawers, no less! Ok, I have to stop...I'm grossing myself out again. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.

It ate at me. All day long in the back of my mind I wondered what childhood disease we could look forward to contracting in the weeks to come thanks to the "second-hand raisin incident". Fast forward to dinner that night. I went out with my sister-in-law, Paige, and our good friend, Katy. During the course of our conversation, Katy mentions that she had been to Old Navy earlier that day and that she had tried on some clothes, and like me, had received a cell phone call. She then proceeded to tell me that her daughter was begging for a snack which she happily gave her to keep her at bay while she finished her call. I excitedly inturrupted her at this point, to ask which stall she had been in...
K: "The big one".
A: "And the snack? It wasn't, by chance raisins and gold fish crackers, was it? And did you happen to notice if she dropped any on the floor?"
K: (mildly amused by my apparent ESP): Ummm...yeah, actually, it was, and she did.

Granted, who knows how many people stepped on those raisins between Katy's daughter's dropping them, and Norah's decision to wolf them down, but I was still mildly relieved to know from whose hand they fell.

What are the odds that this happen in the first place AND then that we meet for dinner the same night AND happen to discuss it? Crazy. Still disgusting, but crazy, nonetheless. Moral of the story? Don't take calls in the dressing room.