Instincts

Do you want to hear something gross?  Of course you do.  You’re disgusting.

I caught this little princess eating her boogers yesterday:

 

I was horrified.  Through my dry-heaving I calmly told her not to eat her boogers.  I said it’s vile and no one will love her anymore if she continues to nosh on her mucus kibbles.  I also told her that when we jam our fingers into our nostrils and swirl them around in search of nuggets, it’s called “Digging for Gold.”  And it’s completely unacceptable and sordid behavior.

This only happened because of my sister.  She recently posted on her blog about her gremlins eating their boogers during their family camping trip.  As I was reading her post, I became nauseated and thought, “Her kids are such heathens.  I’m so glad that Eva will never crave boogers.”  And, BOOM!  Eva craves boogers.  I blame you, Rachel, and your disgusting offspring for telepathically giving my sweet, perfect daughter sickening ideas.

Is this an instinct that kids are born with?  Is it always there, just waiting to manifest itself in the very moment you think your kid is immune to the grossest of all behavior?  I’m disturbed by this.  I’ve always looked down on booger-eaters.  Even as a child I recognized it as repulsive.  I mean, I did partake of a few boogers in my day…just to make sure I was right about how gross it is…and I was right.  I’m appalled that my beautiful angel is a lowly booger-eater.  I may never recover from this.

The worst part is that I told Michael she was eating her boogers and he replied with an indifferent, “Well, that’s what kids do.  I used to eat my boogers all the time.”  What?!  ALL THE TIME?  I wish Michael would have divulged his past propensity for the booger-buffet before I agreed to marry him.  Now he’s passed on his mutated gene to our daughter and there’s nothing I can do about it.  I have to overlook my family of gross-o’s and keep loving them anyway.  Do you know how many things I already overlook with those two?  I don’t know how many more items can be added to my list.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to put on a jacket.  There’s a bit of a cool breeze up here on my high horse.