Health Warning!

When Emma was born she sucked her thumb. Much to our dismay, she sucked her thumb until Kindergarten. Then when Kaidon came along he too sucked his thumb although his habit was a bit harder to break and he sucked his thumb well into his second grade year. Mihya was our good girl and didn't suck her thumb....no, she sucked her two middle fingers up until her second grade year too! Thing was, before Josh and I had kids, we'd see kids walking around sucking their thumbs and we'd verbally say "when we have kids they will NEVER suck their thumbs!" Guess God does have a way of giving you grace for those that you never imagined you could relate too huh?

With all the thumb and finger sucking going on in our house, I must admit I am a bit anal about the hand sanitizer. Yes, I always have a bottle on me. Bath and Body works used to carry a product just for kids that was hand sanitizing wipes and I swear to you, had I known they were going to stop carrying this product in their stores I would have bought cases of those things. They smelled great and didn't burn the kids hands when they had dry cracks (which, when you use hand sanitizer as often as my kids do, tends to happen often). I'm always very aware of dirty grimy handrails and other items of concern when out and about with the kids. For some reason though, when we were in Costa Rica, my guard was down.

So, Josh and I had met some friends and decided to do a city tour with them in Costa Rica. We all four crammed into a taxi and were on our way. We saw the rain forest, banana plantations, a beautiful beach, and cocoa bean farmers (trust me, I knew what I was doing when I decided a long time ago that I didn't like chocolate) and just the way of life for Costa Ricans. Well, when we were driving from one location to another we saw two little boys on the side of the road holding some wild creature. Our friend, Monica, asked the taxi driver what they were doing. He told us they had a sloth that they were letting people take pictures with for a "donation". Monica and I, in unison, said "stop the car, I want to hold a sloth!". Josh and Monica's husband, Nick, looked at us like we were crazy and both said they would take our pictures. Monica went first while Nick snapped a few pictures of her and then she passed the sloth off to me. I guess I was missing Tait an awful lot because I picked that sloth up and coddled it like a baby. I looked at his sweet little eyes and his crooked smile and I thought it was adorable! I pet it and couldn't believe how wiry it's hair was. I did get Josh to pet it with one finger but it took much coaxing. All the while, the little boys watched me nervously and in my head I was thinking "these poor boys live in such a tough environment that they actually think I am going to steal their pet!" I was almost sad at that thought until it was interrupted by our cab driver who said "lady the boys said to keep the sloth away from your body....they say didn't you see its claws?" It was a pretty funny moment just because I had assumed this was their pet and instead it was a wild creature they pulled out of the trees for some quick cash!

Back at the ship later that afternoon we told some friends in the hot tub about the experience and all of their reactions were "oh, we saw those boys too but I just kept thinking of all the germs that thing would carry!" Funny, how away from my kids I had turned into a reckless person who forgot all about germs! Since then, every person I tell the story of the sloth to has the same reaction. I don't know, I guess I wasn't in protective mom mode.

I have no regrets though. It's one of the things I am most going to remember about our vacation. Now, if you see me twitching uncontrollably or some weired growth appears in the middle of my forehead and I can't communicate with the doctors can one of you just pass this information along so I can get the proper treatment?