Those of you who have kids, or who have spent a lot of time around kids, know that they tend to be messy eaters. It’s true there are kids who are naturally fastidious, but I think they’re pretty rare. Most kids don’t mind a bit if they walk around all day with peanut butter smeared on their face or jelly in their hair.

Brenda and I walked with our girls after dinner to a new self-serve frozen-yogurt shop. You can pick your flavor of soft-serve yogurt (I got oatmeal cookie, which was delicious) and then there is a little toppings bar where you choose what you want and add it to your bowl. You pay by the ounce, which is brilliant.

Annalie got a little strawberry-kiwi, a little chocolate, and a little vanilla frozen yogurt. Then she added chocolate chips, mini M&M’s, rainbow sprinkles, Sno-Caps, gummi bears, peanuts, and chocolate syrup. I’m probably forgetting something. I’ll admit that my concoction was only a little less weird. Brenda and Bug loaded up with similar sundaes and we headed outside to a nearby bench to eat them.

Annalie isn’t the neatest eater in the world, but she does a pretty good job of keeping her clothes clean most of the time. Bug, however…well, she’s only two and a half, and she does not mind being a bit messy. Brenda, knowing she isn’t careful when she eats, put a bib on her tonight before she started eating her frozen yogurt.

We all sat on the bench eating our treats, Brenda and I chatting away about how funny it is that some kids are just naturally neat and some are just plain slobs when it comes to eating. There was a youngish (late teens/early 20s) couple sitting at the outside counter across the sidewalk from us eating their yogurt, and they kept shooting glances at Bug. Occasionally one of them would say something to the other like, “Wow, kids are messy,” or “That kid needs help.” We were keeping an eye on both kids and although Bug had chocolate all over her face, we didn’t notice anything seriously amiss. We assumed they were just like we were once—before we had kids—and were adding to their mental lists of Things My Kids Will Never Do. You know, that list that gets shredded pretty much the second you are alone with your newborn infant?

It wasn’t till we got up to throw containers away and wipe the stickiness off hands and faces that we realized that as Bug had been eating, drops of melted chocoalte yogurt were sliding down her oilcloth bib, pooling at the bottom edge, and then dripping off into her lap. When she got up she had a big chocolate spot on the front of her dress, and another on the back of her dress where it had soaked through as we were sitting there. Not to mention the chocolate all over her face. Oh well. It was going to be bathtime as soon as we got home anyway.