Like Mother Like Son: Part 2

So as if the lost shoe episode wasn't evidence enough of how much Clark is like me, we had another fun little experience today that took me down memory lane from my days of yore.

Ahem...another story my family likes to torment me with is about when I was about Clark's age (I know I knew how to read!), my parents bought me a new pair of shoes.  When I got them home, I was in the bathroom putting them on, and when I looked back into the box, there was an extra little present in there...just for me!  Except that when I picked it up, the outside packaging read "Do Not Eat".  I remember actually having the thought that I really could eat it, but whoever put that little treat in there probably just wanted me to ask my mom and dad first.  I felt the little pouch and I thought for sure it was Pop Rocks.  Score!    Yeah right I was going to bother to ask mom and dad...these were my Pop Rocks and no one else was going to eat them but me!  So I opened them and tried a couple.  They didn't taste like Pop Rocks, and I immediately had this feeling of dread and fear wash over my whole body.  WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING???!!!  It said "DO NOT EAT"!!!

Of course I quickly ran and found my mom and confessed what I had done, and I remember she gave me this look like "You CAN read, can't you?"  My little 6 or 7 year old brain couldn't fully express why I had done what I did, but I just knew I needed my mom to make it better...fast.  I don't know if she called Poison Control or not, but thankfully, I did not die, and I learned the important lesson that if something says "Do Not Eat" on it, it probably means that it is more likely to be ummmm...Silica Gel and not some awesome candy like Pop Rocks.

Just in case any of you are interested...Silica Gel really isn't harmful to eat.  

Moving on...ohhhhh almost 25 years later...Clark asks to go over to a friends house after school.  That friend lives in our neighborhood like 6 houses down.  He had only been gone for about 10 minutes and I was on the phone upstairs when suddenly I hear the friends mom downstairs calling my name...in THAT tone.  You know, the one where you immediately drop the phone and run (more like trip and fall) down the stairs because you think your kid must be bleeding something fierce?  Yeah, that one.  When I got downstairs however, Clark was teary eyed, but there was no blood that I could see.  My brain then immediately thought he must have done something horrible to someone else, but before I could get out the words "WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?"  My neighbor starts frantically telling me about how Clark came over and she heard the boys in the kitchen getting snacks when she heard her 10 year old say "No Clark, don't eat the crystals!"  She jumped up and ran in just in time to see Clark take a bite and swallow some  home grown science kit crystals they had made.  All she knew was that it had chemicals in it and they used gloves when they were mixing it all together so she was kind of freaking out a bit about what Clark had just ingested.  I looked down at the remnants of the piece of crystal she was holding and then I looked at Clark and said "Why did you eat this??!"  He responded "I thought it looked like a cookie with sugar candy on top".  And then he burst into tears.  We quickly got online and found the instruction booklet for this particular science crystal kit and sure enough it said "May be harmful if ingested or misused.  If ingested, contact your physician immediately".  Well, that didn't sound good.  So I quickly got the guts to call Poison Control and the man was very nice and let me know that Ammonium Phospate MonoBasic is apparently not dangerous at all in those quantities.

So my child will live.  Bonus!

As soon as it was all over and we had decompressed, I asked Clark what he learned from the experience and he said in true boy fashion "DO NOT EAT that!"  We had to flesh that out a little bit and talk about how you never just eat something without asking when you are at a friends house, and in addition, if you are not quite sure what something is, don't eat it until you find out exactly what it is.  I was more annoyed at his manners than anything else, but how could I, Silica Gel girl, be really mad in this instance?  I couldn't, not if I didn't want to be a hypocrite anyway.  I want to tell Clark my Silica Gel story...but I know what will happen...he will say something awesome like "What the heck mom?  Why would you EVER eat something that says DO NOT EAT all over it?"

And I am just not sure if I can take that kind of judgment from my 7 year old.