Is That Blueberry Yogurt On Your Chin???

Grocery shopping is not high on a kid's list of favorite past-times. However, if you have kids, you know that any grocery shopping trip can be immediately redeemed for said child if there are "tasters" involved. ('Tasters' is the name our family has given to the free samples of food periodically offered at the supermarket and Costco.)

Ben, Jenna, and I were on just such a trip to the grocery store this week. The kids were being troopers, but were eagerly anticipating my announcement that we had all the items on our list and could checkout. We were coming out of one isle, preparing to round the end cap and enter the next isle, when salvation in the form of a folding table and little plastic cup-fulls of two kinds of cereal appeared before our eyes. Ben gleefully calls out "Taster!" and turns to me, eyes imploring. I nod my head in the affirmative and suggest he tries the one on the left as it looked more kid friendly... it was something with cinnamon in the title, so you knew it should be a winner. He happily grabs his little plastic piece of heaven and begins crunching away on the cereal. It didn't take long for him to finish, but the bonus in this situation is that even when the cereal is gone, then one has a little cup to play with and occupy his or her time. It can become a hat, a monocle, a suction cup, a hockey puck...anything the imagination can conceive!

It wasn't too long before we were able to checkout and leave. We had just one more errand on our list. When we arrived at our destination, I noticed Ben's face was dirty. "Strange," I thought. "We had lunch before we left home, but I swore I washed his face off. That looks like blueberry yogurt on his chin!" I brushed the thought aside; our last errand was with family and I knew they wouldn't care if I showed up with a messy child. I made a mental note to wash his face when we got home.

Back at home that afternoon, Ben was snuggling me and he laid his head on my lap. There, looking back at me was the unexplained stain on his chin. I wiped at it. It wasn't food. "What in the world?" I thought as I leaned in to take a closer look. Then, in a flash or clarity, I knew. Of course! The vision of my son in the supermarket, showing off his ability to suction the taster cup to his mouth...it was a taster cup hickey! I chuckled and congratulated myself for solving the mystery.

What's the moral of my story??? Tasters are great, and by all means, use your imaginations and think of ways to have fun with the cup when the snack is gone...but remember the taster cup hickey and opt to use it as a hat or monocle instead!