Life With Ty #12 - A Lesson in Playdoh

I learned a very important parenting lesson today: never let your toddler play with playdoh right before lunch.

 

So it was creeping up on lunchtime, and Ty was hungry.  I wanted to push mealtime back by a few minutes though, so I decided to take out the playdoh to keep him busy.  It worked...for about three minutes...until he started nibbling little bits of playdoh off of his fingers.  Someone was not in the mood to wait for lunch.  When he was sick of me telling him "no" every time he brought a finger to his mouth, Ty started turning his back to eat a little piece without me seeing.  Yes, my picky-eater to the extreme, who will not even look at a piece of bread or a cheerio, fought me to eat playdoh.  Go figure. 

 

Finally, about four minutes into this activity, Ty made a break for it.  With his big glob of yellow playdoh in hand, he took off across the playroom and shoved the entire ball into his mouth...the entire ball.  At first, satisfaction was written all over his face.  I could see his little wheels turning thinking, "Ha!  I ate my playdoh and you couldn't stop me!" 

 

And then he swallowed.   That satisfaction quickly turned to panic, as that massive ball of goo slid slowly down his throat.  Thankfully, he was still breathing through his nose, so there wasn't much to do but wait for it to make it's slow descent.  (Someone was planning ahead when they made playdoh a product that dissolves with water!)  Unfortunately for Ty though, what wasn't swallowed was stuck firmly onto the roof of his mouth.  He was not impressed.  After getting bit attempting to scoop it out with my finger, I had to resort to using a spoon to remove the blob.  Again, Ty was peeved, to say the least. 

 

In the end, Ty was left with yellow goo seeping between his teeth, and a constant stream of yellow drool, which stained the front of his shirt.  Brushing teeth required a little extra effort tonight, and I'm guessing we may have a colorful surprise next time we change his diaper. 

 

Lesson learned?  Save playdoh-related activities for after mealtimes, and never trust a hungry toddler with the stuff.