Daily Diatribes

The blonde goddess is truly growing up and pulling away from me.  My last little fledgling is preparing to spread her wings and fly away.  Last night, I licked my thumb to clean a smudge from her precious face and she performed several avoidance maneuvers so as not to be touched by my spit. 

Which leads me to ponder the sanctity of a mother’s spit.  From the very first breath our child takes on his/her own, we are there with a mouthful of saliva, ready to disinfect and decontaminate anything that might pose a threat to the welfare of our child.  Think back to those first months when your baby would throw his pacifier to the floor.  Ok, maybe with the first one, you boiled it before you popped it back into his mouth.  But with the rest of the little rugrats, a simple spit on the nipple and a wipe on your shirt and the pacifier was ready to be reunited with its owner.

Who hasn’t washed a child’s entire face with a forefinger and copious amounts of spit?  I have bathed my children in the car before church with a McDonald’s napkin moistened with my own saliva.  We are mammals and just like the mother lioness, we lovingly cleanse our young, if not with our tongues, at least with our spit. 

I have used spit to tame an errant cowlick.  I have used it to remove ketchup stains from clothing.  It works great as a polish for white tap shoes right before a recital.  It may even cut through tough soap scum, although I haven’t tried that one yet. 

Saliva doesn’t just work on the children either.  How about when you drop a contact lens on the floor of the bathroom at the stadium while you are in line waiting to rid yourself of the three beers you just drank?  No contact solution along??  Just pop the sucker in your mouth to moisten it and reinsert it in your eye.  Works like a charm.  All germs from the floor will die upon contact with the powerful female saliva. 

I was reading the New England Journal of WebMd medicine just last night and was transfixed by an article about a new research study being performed.  A group of scientists at Case Western Reserve have been given a grant to study the effects of the saliva of nursing mothers on the AIDS virus, the Ebola virus, Dandruff, halitosis, bubonic plague, ear infections, male pattern baldness and Strep Throat.  It’s really cutting edge research.  Dupont is conducting research to market female saliva as a heavy duty cleaning product for bathrooms and kitchens.  It will be lemon scented of course.

Anyway, the only problem with saliva is once your children reach a certain age, they resist its healing properties.  Were I to spit on a finger and approach my teenage son, he would probably die of mortification in front of me or else run like hell to avoid me.  No amount of cajoling could persuade him that my spit is not only sterile, but it is holy and has antibacterial properties as well.  Alas, Abby and the goddess have come to the same pass, running away from me whenever I attempt to baptize them with my saliva.

So the next time you attempt to remove the chocolate from your child’s mouth with a glob of saliva, take a moment to thank God for His wonderful creation.  Yes, for many it’s just a means of moistening their mouths, but for mothers, it serves a much higher purpose.