The Cookie Crumb Loogi Dance

My favorite time of the day is just after dinner. We are all together as a family, fed and watered and not yet too tired. I relax, feeling the pressure release of no longer being the only go-to-guy for all traumas and disagreements. The kids are usually easy-going and giggly, happy to see their Daddy and pleased with the attention we focus on them for the hour between dinner's end and the bedtime ritual. Matt and I both have an extra measure of patience and tolerance in that hour because the glorious end is in sight, that golden light at the end of another day's tunnel where quiet and beer/wine and our time awaits.

Yesterday evening, I finished loading the dishwasher to the uplifting sound of toddler and baby chortles. Daddy swung them above his head in turn and spun them around and around and then set them down, dizzy and delighted to wait for their next turn. My favorite music played, the soundtrack to our lives that I love the most, giggles, shrieks, laughter, again!, again!, my turn Daddy, spin me, spin me, spin Cue, spin Ess.

I peeked in from the kitchen to see Gee, high above Matt's head, laughing, open-mouthed, in delighted abandon.

And then, "Ewwwwwwwwww." A loud, jarring, discordant note. Out of tune. The symphony crashed to an uncertain halt.

Matt: What is that. What?
Me: Are you okay? Did you just drop one of them?
Matt: No, gross. What the?
Gee: Uncontrollable giggles on the floor.
Ess: Uncontrollable giggles on the floor.
Cue: Delighted baby shrieking on the floor.

Matt reached his hand up to the back of his head and it came back covered in toddler drool. With bonus cookie crumbs. We had large sugar cookies after dinner.

Matt: Gee what is this on my head? Is this? What? Is this DROOL on my head? Gross. Gross. GROSS!!!
Me: It's just a little. He got excited.

Matt turned around and pointed at the back of his head indignantly. It wasn't a little. It was more like someone cracked an egg over his bald head and it ran down the back of his neck. An egg mixed with half-digested sugar cookie crumbs.

Matt: Get it off. Get a towel. Get it OFF!

I lost it. There is something about seeing a grown, thirty-five year old man do the icky cooties dance that releases some kind of little kid hilarity well deep inside of you. He was beside himself with horror. He couldn't stand still and he kept doing this straight-armed shudder of revulsion. Think person who has accidentally just eaten the most disgusting thing you can imagine, or who has just felt a little tickle and brushed what turned out to be a five-inch-diameter, man-eating spider from his neck. Or maybe think five-year-old girl pee-pee dance, without the crotch holding. A six foot, two inch tall, 220 lb five-year-old girl.

I laughed until I cried.

Matt: Help me. Can you help me? I can't reach it all. Get it off.
Me: (Uncontrollable, helpless laughter.) Ah, stop, I can't breathe.
Matt: You suck. This is not funny.
Me: Relax. It's just drool. It's not like he dropped a diarrhea bomb on your head.
Matt: It's not just drool. It has chunks. It's a big, fat, nasty cookie crumb loogi. GET IT OFF ME.

I procured a wet wipe, although it was hard, because it's hard to function without oxygen, and wiped it off. Matt's sanity gradually returned to him, but I still only had to look at him to be again prostrate with laughter. I'm not sure if this is translating at all in the telling. I wish I had a video of his reaction to share with you because my stomach hurts and I am laughing with tears running down my face remembering his cookie loogie dance as I type.

I think we have discovered a new weapon. A weapon of mass incapacitation. Think of it. Toddler drool is available in unlimited supply. Cookies are environmentally friendly. Apparently, toddler cookie drool has a previously undiscovered power to bring normally functioning adult men to their knees. It's not dangerous to stockpile. It won't contaminate anything. It's renewable, sustainable and green.

The next time some unfortunate dictator gets a little out of line and sends an army where it shouldn't be sent, the UN hits them with the world's largest cookie crumb loogi. They writhe on the ground, incapacitated by disgust. People have time to flee. The nasty invasion is stymied while the combatants run around frantically looking for someone to wipe them off. Dispute resolution at its finest. What a wonderful world it could be.