I’ve never had a problem sharing anything with Alyssa. Really, if you think about it, her body is practically my body in composition. Cells divided and multiplied for nine months within me and in the end, Alyssa had her very own physical body.
So when Alyssa was teething and drooling, she still wanted to receive and give love. Planting slobbery kisses on my lips was the norm and I certainly wasn’t opposed to it. Somewhere between then and now, Alyssa decided that sharing my drink, fork or straw was basically just too germy for her to experience even though we share the same cellular genetics. That is why her request to drink out of my already opened bottle was extremely surprising.
“Sure!”I said, as I handed her the bottle in amazement at her willingness to place her lips where my germ corroded lips had also touched.
However, I had forgotten a very important fact…
There are two ways to drink from a bottle of soda pop.
- 1. When you are young and don’t know any better, you cover the entire opening of the soda body with your lips and pour it into your mouth… but some of it washes back into the bottle every time thus the term “backwash” was coined.
2. You put your top lip part of the way in the opening of the bottle so that you control the flow of soda pop and none of it goes from your mouth back into the container.
Bear in mind that Alyssa is sixteen years old and has been drinking soda “grown up” style for many, many years. Today, however, she reverted back to age two and covered the entire end of the bottle with her mouth, took a big gulp, undoubtedly had “backwash” and then handed the soda to me.
I stared in amazement, first at her face and then into my bottle.
My little germaphobe just handed me a bottle with backwash and it didn’t seem to bother her at all.
“Alyssa! You just backwashed in my soda!”
Sweetly smiling, “Yes?”
“I can’t believe you did that…Don’t you think it’s gross any more?”
“Mo-om,” she said as if I just became the dumbest person on the planet. “Backwash would be bad if you did it in my bottle, but I’m your child and that stuff doesn’t bother you.”
I just blinked.
Does it bother me?
Then I laughed.
She is right! It didn’t bother me in the least. It was just a little spit for heavens sake!
Alyssa, the sunshine of my morning, with her sweetly, mischievous smile and big brown eyes staring up at me, will never know how much I truly love her. At that moment, standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, I felt overwhelming gratitude because I have been blessed with a child as lovely as any human being that ever walked the face of the Earth.
My heart is filled with deep and strong emotions for a baby that has grown into a lovely young woman…
While my soda bottle is simply filled with, yeah, backwash.
OH! You mean "floaties". I've had those in my water bottle, soda bottle, tea and thankfully, I haven't had any in my coffee. I think that is just too "Ewww!" to think about. hahahaah
LOL, that cracks me UP! Totally true, I can see my big kids (almost 14 yr old twins thinking the same way). My little one could care less yet at 8. FUNNY story…
My sister is a wonderful mother to two little ones 3 and 4 just 13 months apart. So YES she's still in the middle of a little saliva and spit and doesn't think twice of licking her thumb to smooth an eyebrow or wipe a crumb. She's also a VERY talented part time hair stylist. One day she was coloring a "regular" customer and they were deep in stylist/therapy mode. My sister noticed that the customer had a smear of color a bit down on her temple. …just like at home, without THINKING, licked her thumb and wiped it off! The customer never skipped a beat in her conversation! 😉 (My sister was mortified after she did it but it was such an innate response…for a mommy!)
that's hilarious and so true! The only drool I can tolerate is my little girl's…that's called a mother's love 🙂
This post is too cute. Only a mother would feel so much love over a little backwash.