Spit off the Old Block

One day, when I was about six years old, I remember sitting at a restaurant table and feeling relieved to see that there was water in my mother's glass at the end of the meal, because it occurred to me that she would dampen her napkin with the water from her glass, instead of spitting on it, to wipe my face.  When she did spit on the napkin anyway, she asked me why I was screwing up my face, and when I said, "I don't like when you spit on me," she burst out laughing.  

What stories will my baby girl have to tell once she can talk . . . A few weeks ago, I took her in to the office, where she sat in my office chair with one of her books. She could reach into one open desk drawer to amuse herself with feeling around for the phone book and the spiral-bound college catalog. I noticed she had leaned into the drawer and had her mouth on the edge, but I kept my eye on her and thought she was just leaning on it until she popped her head up and I saw that she had little brown specks on her lips where she had been gnawing on the drawer and shaved the finish off with her tiny teeth.

Now, our furniture is easily 50 years old, maybe 80 or more. I swept her up in my arms, brushed her mouth off, and sniffed to see if she had a mouthful of vintage desk varnish.  I wasn't sure, and without even hesitating, I held her up to my face and swept her mouth with my tongue.  I mean, I realized this had happened after I had done it, when I thought to myself, "What did I just do to another person?"  Motherhood is totally turning me into a freak--my mother's napkin-spitting was nothing.