Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolli lolli pop

Yesterday at school, 7-year-old K's 2nd-grade class had their Valentine's Day party. K had made his own Valentines the night before. He cut out hearts from pink and red sheets of construction paper and wrote little messages for each classmate. Some of the hearts resembled blobs, however, and he did get a little irritated and flustered so I offered to help. I was happy that he started the project on his own though.

When K came home from school, he asked if he could have some candy from the party. I said yes as he could use that as his after-school snack. He went to the dining room table and I went downstairs to finish work up for the day. When I went back upstairs, I heard a noise coming from the table that sounded like CRACK, CRUNCH, and possibly teeth breaking, but it was K who had bit right into the middle of a Blow Pop. I walked over and looked at what he was holding in his hand. The Blow Pop was severed in two - one giant chunk in his mouth and the remainder on the stick. I told him that to eat a Blow Pop means to suck it or lick it - not to just bite right on into it! I had him spit into my hand what was in his mouth (the gum!!!) and I took the stick and what was on it away and pitched it all into the trash.

I actually told K that he doesn't have proper candy etiquette. Oh dear... yes, I actually said that! Like he knew what that meant. Well, I went on to explain that suckers, lollipops, Tootsie Pops, Dum Dums, Blow Pops, and candy on a stick like that are meant to be sucked or licked. You suck and lick and then when the thing in the middle appears, be it a gum blob or a tootsie roll blob, THEN you can bite into it and get it off the stick. I told him that with a Blow Pop, especially, you suck it and lick it and THEN you get to the gum which is kind of like the prize. You then can bite the gum off the stick and chew it a while.

With K, gum is candy. You unwrap it, chew it, throw it out. The real problem is when there is a lot of it, such as a pack of gum or a bowl of Halloween candy with a large amount of individually-wrapped bubble gum pieces. He gets over-excited at the sight of it all and in his head, the gum will be eaten just like candy. He unwraps a piece, puts it in his mouth, chews it for maybe 60 seconds, spits it out, unwraps a piece, puts it in his mouth, chew it for maybe 60 seconds, spits it out, unwraps a piece, you get the idea. If I let this go on, I would buy stock in the Wrigley Corporation!

The Blow Pop never had a chance. In fact, there is one left that I took away yesterday. K asked if he could have it back and I said, "If you eat it the right way." I think yesterday, when he was eating the other one, that he was in 'the zone' of candy eating and just didn't think far enough in advance as to what he would do with a mouth full of gum when he still had half a Blow Pop in his hand.