Big night here at our house: two posts in one evening!

This is random, but I just validated something. I’ve longed believed this to be true, but tonight it was empirically verified for me.

Girls can’t spit.

Each night I brush the kids’ teeth. We let them brush their own teeth in the morning, but at night Sunny or I will get in there and apply some elbow grease to get the grime off their teeth. We recently switched to a toothpaste that creates more “lather” or whatever, so the kids either have to spit it out or drink it down. We opted for the former in the Bybee household when I was growing up. The thought of drinking toothpaste spit just makes my stomach turn. (So does the use of the word “curdle”, but that’s neither here nor there.) Needless to say, I encourage spitting.

But Abby Kate is terrible at this. When I finish, I tell her to spit and she gets this real dainty look on her face and her nose curls up and she sort of opens her mouth and projects the tiniest little bit of spittle out. I’ve tried showing her by giving her step-by-step instructions (just a minute ago, I tried to teach the imprecise art of loogie-hocking) to no avail. Joshua, on the other hand, is a pro. When he spits, he rares back and lets it rip. It’s really quite impressive. I really think it comes with the Y chromosome. The other day we were walking around at Bridge Street and we came to that bridge overlooking the water and he and I both had the impulse to spit. Which we did. Repeatedly. It was a cool bonding moment. I guarantee you it wasn’t long before Adam was taking Cain and Abel out back to show them the art of spitting. Who knows, maybe that was the root of some of their hostility – Abel was a better spitter?

So Joshua seems like a typical male in the spitting department. (What’s really weird is he sounds just like me when he spits. Poor kid.) If I were to give him a target, I’ll bet he could hit it with some degree of consistency. Abby Kate, on the other hand, spits like a girl. No other way to say it.

At least she comes by it naturally. Her mother spits like a girl. Which I guess is better than the alternative, now that I think about it.

(I can’t believe I just spent five minutes writing this post. I also can’t believe I’m actually about to publish it. And I’ll bet you can’t believe you actually wasted your time reading it. At least there’s some consistency there!)

Good night.