Exotic Cuisines from a Living Room Rug

Children possess an uncanny ability to find the most disgusting things in the course of their development. What is even worst, a child will use their mouth to perform most of their examination of what they find. The other night, my wife and I had the television on, watching a movie we enjoy as well as watching our soon-to-one year old playing on the living room rug at our feet. At this time in our daughter’s life, it is hard to do anything else now that she is mobile and determined to touch and fondle every artifact likely to break. Even when I wave a plastic hanger in her face to deter her, she laughs at me and looks at me as if to say, “Oh that thing? Sheeiit. You are going to have to do better than that, dad. I already got that scar and the bloody tee shirt. ”
I stand reluctantly in the middle of the living room as a guard against anything she should not have. The television distracts me; her sounds and movements battle for my attention. Every five minutes we take turns to chase after her, refill her sippy cup, or change her dirty diaper. “What happened?” is always the first question from us once we return.
Harmless baby toys are strewn about the floor. She crawls and rolls around the brightly colored blocks, battery-operated toy cell phone, and various stuffed animals like a ninja avoiding a lethal training course. She pauses for a short moment and my subconscious speaks out, good, she isn’t moving and making noise, watch the TV, something good is going to happen any second. Out of my peripheral vision, I think I see Cori find an insect carcass. I cannot tear my eyes away from the plasma, mounted above the fireplace. The guy on TV has just found the wedding ring encased in a dog turd.
Our daughter sits up from her crawl and performs a victory wave with the desiccated corpse secured between her thumb and forefinger. She holds it high above her head just before she pops it into her mouth and begins to chew. Is she chewing on a bug? I think to myself as she looks up at me and begins to chew with a slobbery grin. I look at Sara. She is also watching Cori and instantly snatches her up off the rug, using her finger to fish for whatever is in her mouth. When she realizes it is a bug her daughter was chewing like bubble gum, the only emotion overcoming the heat of her anger, directed at me, is her revulsion of the slimy bug still sticking to her finger.
“Ah… Gross! An earwig.” She glares up at me as Cori slips back down from her lap and back onto the rug for more.
“I thought it was a piece of fuzz,” is my singular defense.
“Just get rid of it,” she growls.
“Okay, no problem.”
I skitter off happy to oblige her demand, thinking random thoughts about Cori’s momentary success. Well, that was fucking gross. I wonder if Cori has an aftertaste. At least she wouldn’t choke on it. Sara didn’t wash her finger. I flick the dead bug, which now looks like a wet coco rice crispy into the toilet and flush, eager to wash my hands.
“What happened?” I ask.
“He ate it.”
“Oh.” I stand there in the room, blocking Cori’s path into the hallway as I watch the lady on T.V. “Gross.”