Cat food and Mascara: Breakfasts of Champions

The Daddy in our house is sick. And I mean S.I.C.K. So for the past two days he's quarantined himself downstairs, in an effort to avoid getting Chicken and Mama sick.

Baby-Cayd and I have survived so far without Daddy's extra pairs of eyes and hands, but I must confess to at least two "Holy shit, get that OUT OF YOUR MOUTH" moments over the past couple of mornings.

It is a tough, tough thing to keep a mobile baby entertained and safe, while at the same time getting myself showered, made-up, dressed and packed for work. I need 40 minutes, and I only like to contain him in the jumperoo for 10-15 minutes.

So that leaves a heck of a lot of time to simultaneously ready myself and distract the boy who is intent on exploring all the things he decidedly should NOT be exploring. And so I've resorted to any quick distraction I can afford, misdirecting my boy's attention to whatever seemingly safe and simple object I have at hand and with which I can tempt his fixation for a minute or two.

Enter cat food and mascara. Well, not intentionally.

Yesterday morning I set up a toy corner in the kitchen for Cayden as I got our lunches ready and cleaned up some dishes. But next thing I know, I hear the distinct sound of cat food rattling around in the plastic cat food dish. Knowing both cats are full from breakfast, I peer over the island just in time to see Cayden put a handful of kibble in his mouth.

I got all but one piece out. So he had kibble breath yesterday morning and probably had a nice sheen to his fur -- I mean hair -- the rest of the day. One piece of cat kibble can't hurt him, right? Not that we'll be making it part of our daily diet, but I'm not freaking out over it.

Damn cat food companies. Why does their food look so much like Cheerios?

Then this morning, I distracted him every few minutes with a new make-up tool or compact in the bathroom. One of which was an old mascara brush that I had cleaned and dried to use as a poor-man's lash brush. But the black smudges all over Cayden's hands, face and the bathroom floor first startled me, then led me to quickly realize how a few years of brushing and separating mascara-ed lashes built up some layers of eye goo on the brush I stupidly assumed was still as clean as the day I washed it. Of course the mascara brush had gone to that wonderful and mysterious source of infant enlightenment -- the smacker -- and made a mess of my baby and my bathroom floor. Which, ironically enough, I had just cleaned on my hands and knees last night, while Chicken splashed in the bath.

But again, I've never read about death-by-mascara, so we're just chalking it up to life experience.

Cayden is 10 months, 5 days old, and he's a wonderful, fantastic kid, yet a royal pain in the ass in the mornings.