Ice Cream is Evil

My son, my beautiful son, is three years old. A delight. Mostly. And I'm not just saying that, really. But...

Today he had orange sherbet ice cream on a sugar cone, the kind with the dangerously pointy end. Usually my kiddo bites the crunchy point allowing passage for melted sugary milk to drip onto everything nearby. Today I was especially proud because he did not opt to destroy the cone first! He was properly consuming the ice cream from top to bottom. What a glorious day for homemakers everywhere, but not so much for the paper towel companies who are routinely utilized for the heavy cleaning duties.

I asked for a bite, took one, and was quickly reproached with, "No, Mommy, tongue." He then proceeded to show me the proper method for ice cream consumption -- to lick, not to bite.

He licked that ice cream from only one side, the stack of dessert leaning dangerously toward the opposite edge of the cone. I would methodically push the mess upright every so often, hoping he would occasionally turn the cone, pivot it to reach the other side and even things up a little.

All too soon he grew tired of the typical licking method, ran to the kichen drawer and found a kid-sized spoon. With it, he ate one bite; tiny, barely denting the food. So the next scoop was aggressive, going for mass, and the forceful plunge ran under the ice cream and into the tender gridwork of cone, splintering it. Orange ooze gushed under the weight of creamy glob and down onto the carpet.

"Son!" I said, perhaps forcefully, in my most feared maternal voice as I grabbed for the nearest roll of aforementioned paper towels.

Looking straight into my eyes, one hand hidden under pumpkin colored rivulets of liquid, the other hand gripping that wet messy spoon, he opened the hand holding the cone. It fell to the floor as my beautiful, delightful son continued to hold eye contact with me.

He was finished with his snack.

All that I can guess is that that ice cream was filled with high fructose corn syrup, the ingredient which makes people fat without ever feeling full, thus they consume it in great quantities because it tastes so good. And inside of the sugary goodness, someone had squirted some evil, probably in a liquid form but perhaps inside crystallized sugar of orange hue. Right? I mean that is the only way my perfect child could have done something so rotten.

Mothers can justify anything.