Soap's on!

For a toddler who's suddenly obsessed with lining things up, nothing seems cooler than lines of multicolored, scented soap at the farmers market.

For a full 20 minutes on Saturday, I watched as the little guy brought one bar after another up to his nose, then carefully placed them back down in a train-like line. A near-meltdown occurred when I tried to coax him away from the table. The owner was amused, chuckled and tucked away her card in the bag when I broke down and placed an order.

Her parting gift? Two slivers of soap, one for each child.

My guy proudly clenched that soap in his fist as we trotted around the market, occasionally catching a sniff of his bar. We had an nearly incident-free morning, until I began to drive away.

"Moooommmm!" I heard in that whiny drawl, strung out as only a tattle-telling kid can do. "He ate the soap!"

Dang. It's bad enough we had to call poison control a few weeks ago because he ate my deoderant. (And, I might add, not only the "powder fresh" but also the "shower clean" varieties!) Now we had to call the poor soap lady, who was thinking she's getting an order and instead was peppered with questions on what actually in those bars. Thankfully, we had no health issues as a result.

Some parents threaten to wash their child's mouth out with soap. Ain't going to work in my home.