French fry is the new napkin

I used a french fry as a napkin today. To be perfectly clear, I wasn't wiping the table clean after dinner or anything ludicrous like that. It was Buttercup's. And since the offending substance was enough ketchup to drown a pig, it seemed appropriate.

Why waste an actual napkin, ya know?

Up until tonight, Buttercup had never had ketchup. I'm one of those anal-retentive moms who limits the juice and the crap I stuff down my own gullet in the name of hypocricy, and was figuring I'd let her try the food God invented to dress up french fries when she was allowed to start dating---so like, maybe, 35?

But here I was at the kitchen table with a pounding headache brought on by an overly-crabby toddler dealing with her own little trip back to reality-lane after last week's vacation, and my own plummeting blood sugar levels from forgetting to eat properly while I tried to work and chase down the child I would have so willingly sold to a band of wandering gypsies with the mood I was in, and I really didn't give a damn when Buttercup dipped her first fry into the kethcup on my plate.

I also proceeded to thank the ketchup Gods as Buttercup continued to happily scoop the ketchup directly into her mouth off of the same fry she had started with five minutes before.

I was eating. I was sitting down. I was enjoying the fact that she was not screaming. So who really cared if Buttercup had decided that her now soggy fry was a spoon and the ketchup some tasty and exotic dip? And when the fry fell apart and she decided to finally take pity and put it out of its misery by actually eating it (Yay! She ate a solid food!). She then proceeded to just start shoveling the remaining ketchup into her mouth with her hands.

By the time I finished my dinner, Buttercup looked like a horror movie extra. Had I had the energy to grab the dgital, I would have a great visual to go along with this post. But I was tired, cranky, and would rather have gone in search of a martini than the camera, so you'll have to make due with this post.

That's when I spotted the pile of untouched fries on her little plate.

And that's when I grabbed one and used it to wipe off her hands before popping it into my mouth. As for the ketchup on her face? Yeah, that took two fries, and they were pretty tasty, too.