Home Sweet Foam

Our daughter celebrated her fourth birthday a week or so ago. For the first time ever, my beloved did the shopping for this illustrious occasion, mostly because he was in the vicinity of our local educational toy store on his way home from a volleyball match two nights before the big day.

Let me say first that I was very proud of him for this. He really did an exceptional job--with all the gifts but one. I call his judgement into question on the modeling foam.

Ever heard of modeling foam? I hadn't either. It's this amazing substance consisting of (I kid you not) tiny colored spheres 1mm or less in diameter that supposedly (and I place emphasis on that word) adhere to each other but not to your hands or anything else.

Ha.

This morning, I was picking microscopic pink and white foam bits off the couch, attempting to sweep them off the hardwood floor in the dining room, plucking them from the bristles of the broom...it was a nightmare, especially when combined with the task of convincing my cherubs to tidy up thousands of Legos, hundreds of molded plastic animals, and dozens of markers.

Managing the whole endeavor proved too much for me, and I started doling out punishment as a result, including the dreaded bedroom time-out for our wee one. Then, when I went to retrieve her from her confines, I discovered that the foam pellets also functioned in much the same way as burrs, attaching themselves to my daughter's flesh and then dislodging onto her comforter, her rug, and a multitude of other things she came into contact with while apparently rolling around, wailing and gnashing her teeth in protest of her short-term incarceration.

If it weren't for its educational qualities, I'd say damn the stuff to the depths of Hades. You know what? I'll go ahead and say that anyway.