Miracle Margarine

It's amazing how much you can learn by examining the keywords that a person googles over the course of a day.

Our recent searches:

- Plane Crash in Hudson (We're finally catching up on current events)
- Latitude of Lyon, France (Always nice to know where you are--45.7 degrees north as opposed to 40.0 in Illinois.)
- Superglue in Child's Mouth

So, the last one probably needs a bit of explaining. I was doing the dishes and Talia was playing about ten feet away from me. All of a sudden I heard her blowing raspberries and saying "yucky," "yucky."

Parenting lesson, number 101. Unless it's mealtime, it's never a good sign when your child starts blowing raspberries and saying "yucky."

I turned around and saw Talia holding an open tube of Superglue. In less than two minutes she had managed to pull a chair up to the counter, climb up on it, empty out a jar of pens and other knickknacks, fish the Superglue out of the very bottom, unscrew it with her teeth, and get Superglue all over her tongue and fingers in the process.

Fighting the urge to panic, I evaluated the situation. Fortunately, despite the crusty Superglue remains on her fingertips and mouth, nothing was fused together. Talia seemed slightly perplexed by the strange taste and odd sensation, but otherwise, she was completely unfazed.

I then summoned my most reliable babysitter, DVD, to keep Talia from causing any new disasters while I got online to figure out what to do. It's amazing how over the course of a decade, the Internet has gone from being an oddity to an indispensable resource, the fathomless fount of solutions to even the oddest predicaments. I still remember the first time I used the Internet back as a sophomore in high school: it took "Gopher" five minutes just to load a chicken soup recipe.

Fortunately, in less than a second, Google gave me what I was looking for--"How to Remove Superglue from the Mouth: Case Report." Apparently some ER doctors at the Bradford Royal Infirmary had the same perplexing question after a two year-old in England likewise bit down on tube of Superglue. They discovered that high molecular-weight oils, such as those found in kerosene, loosen the glue. However, sticking kerosene in a toddler's mouth seemed unwise. Luckily, margarine apparently is also a good source of these heavy oils. And so, I followed the same course of treatment as these wise medical blokes and gave Talia a spoonful of margarine to suck on. Ta Da! The miracle cure.

While Jason may prefer butter, I intend to keep at least a little margarine on hand for as long as I have both children and superglue. After all, you never know when it may come in handy!