The 3 Letter Swear Word... GUM

I hate gum. When I was growing up, my mom didn't allow us to have gum. I thought she was so mean and ruthless. The only time we ever got to have gum was if my mom was gone and my dad always bought it for us and we chewed it by the wad. No joke, Amy or myself could have probably set a world record for the largest wad of gum chewed at one time.

It is only now that I am a parent myself that I understand my mom's rules. I hate gum, I don't let my children have gum. It gets everywhere, they pull it out of their mouth, twist it around, put it on things and I hate the sound of someone chewing their gum with their mouth open (thanks for passing on that fabulous pet peeve, Josh). It is only now that I see how wise my mother was.

A lot of people let their children chew gum and at a very young age might I add. I swear, all of Chloee's friends chew gum and she is always mad that their moms let them and I don't let her. Everyone has different rules.

Today, as I was doing laundry, I found chewed up gum stuck inside 2 pockets on separate pairs of pants. Of course they are her brand new pants, both of them! This was even the first time to wash them. I always check the pockets on all pants, adult, child, whoever, just to make sure something is not in there like a red marker and then all of the clothes are going to be stained red.

I could have screamed, no wait, I did scream. Her and Kennet had snuck into Amy's drawer and took multiple pieces of gum. When I caught her chewing gum, I made her spit it out. She fessed up to me that they later went back and got more and when she saw me, she pulled it out of her mouth and shoved it in her pocket. That was last week and it wasn't until today, nearly a week later that I saw the gum.

I read lots of things on the internet on how to get gum out of clothing. The thing that ended up working best was the hairspray. After I sprayed it on there, I was able to scrape most of the gum off and it kind of made it disintegrate so I could Shout and Oxi-Clean it. After a while of scrubbing, I was finally able to get it to the point where I could put it in the washer.

Just had to vent!