The Bishop of Recycled Spaghetti

While on a walk along the greenway near our house, Linus stumbled to the ground. In his attempt to not drop the collection of sticks he had worked so hard to gather, he landed not on his palms but instead on his knuckles. The crash was a significant one because tears welled up in his eyes and he needed some comfort. Upon inspection, I saw that he had indeed skinned his knuckles and was bleeding. It was the kind of scrape that could have benefited from a band-aid. However, before I could suggest such a thing, my teacher instinct kicked in: "If you start with the band-aids now, you'll never be able to stop."

Lucky for me, I had a simpler solution ready to go. I would simply kiss the ouchie and make it all better with my magical mommy kisses. This strategy worked it's magic perfectly and we were able to continue on our walk.

Strolling along the greenway, I prided myself on my quick resolution completely ignorant to the other monster I had just created. It is true that I have managed to escape the band-aid addiction for at least a while longer, I just did not realize that I would now be required to kiss every little bump, bruise, scrape, and mark my sweet little toddler can find on his body.

Reality set in at dinner time while watching Linus slurp the sauce off his spaghetti and toss the noodles back onto his tray. The sauce being slightly acidic must have irritated his knuckle scrapes because all of a sudden he stopped slurping, balled up his fists, and held them out to me. He requested a kiss on each of his damaged knuckles. Once satisfied with my fulfillment, he turned to his daddy and repeated the request.

As I watched my husband very carefully kiss each little dimpled knuckle, I couldn't help but think how like kissing the Pope's ring the scene appeared. Yes, we now bow down and kiss the hands of our new Bishop of Recycled Spaghetti. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.