day 2: eating dirt and keeping clean

Apologies for two cute kid stories in a row, but this one was just too fun to pass up!

I was on the T this morning, rushing to get things done before hitting the road.  Just past Central, a cute little boy in a stroller, around 2 years old, started flirting with me from across the car.  His mom was attempting to get him ready for snack time, which included wiping his hands to ensure that he didn't get any nasty germs, or contaminated objects in his little mouth...  she was pretty distracted, however, by the task of getting the teddy grahams out of the diaper bag, and the little munchkin was feeling mischievous.

With a glint in his eyes, he grabbed his foot, avec very dirty shoe, and with a flirtatious grin at me, proceeded to lick his shoe.  Properly shocked at how horrible it tasted, he recoiled and promptly began spitting with an acuity that would make professional baseball players proud.  Mom, however, was completely oblivious to this small turn of events, and proceeded to continue washing his hands, narrating as she went, that they were doing this to prevent unclean things from entering his mouth.

I had to smile, because of the toddler's lack of wisdom in keeping dirty things out of his mouth, and experimental learning of the lesson his mother was attempting to instill, and utter cuteness, and the mother's goodhearted desire to prevent contamination.

Lesson of the day: eating dirt is neither good nor beautiful (nor tasty).  But this moment was... :)