wondering what to do with leftover dryer lint?

It is extremely easy to tell when we have a crabby and tired 5 year old girl on our hands.

She's awake. (rim shot)

No, no. She is typically a joy to be around and has a zest for life that is contagious.

She loves to play with others but has been doing so great at learning to play on her own over the past few years.

But as all almost 6 year old children do...she gets tired.

Then whiny.

And likes to stall and complain.

It is genetically programmed into children to go off about 20 minutes before bedtime and around this age marker.

Lucky us.

Saturday night was one of these nights.

She was brushing her teeth and then asked for 'some mosquito bite stuff' to help with the itching. The stalling took center stage.

I poked my head into the bathroom to find dad applying 'that mosquito bite stuff' to her back and she was crying (tired crying of course). So I tried to alleviate her complaints by throwing her off track.

It went something like this...

Me - Carah, your blood is just too tasty. Those mosquitos love to bite you. You have to learn to tell them no.

Carah - Ugh.

Me - Just start eating foods that mosquitos don't like.

Carah - Like what? (her mood starts to turn around drastically)

Me - Pickles and mustard.

Carah - GROSS!

Me - Okay, onions and garlic.

Carah - SUPER GROSS!

Me - (spent a moment thinking of an oddball combination) Aha. Ive got it now. Fingernail clippings and dryer lint.

Carah - (looks at me as if I just called her best friend Lucy the doll a whore and kicked the smile off her face) (I didn't) (this time) Um...what?

Me - Yeah, I think we have some lint in the dryer still! (grabbing her hand) Lets go!

We proceed to run to the laundry room where we make a large ball out of the dryer lint from the recent load of fluffy towels that just finished drying. Fluffy towels makes for super fluffy dryer lint.

Me - *whispering* take this and pretend to eat this in front of dad as a joke.

Carah - Okay!

Carah runs into the family room where dad was waiting for our nonsense to end and she pretended to eat the dryer lint to get rid of the mosquitos.

We learned this weekend that we need to work on our pretend eating.

Yup.

She put the lint in her mouth.

IN HER MOUTH!

Yuck.

I grab the lint from her hand and take a chunk off of her tongue. She then starts to cry, drinks everything in sight she can find and the 5 year old bedtime moodiness sets back in.

As soon as she had drank her body weight in water she was done crying and her mouth was lint free...and yet so dryer fresh!

I said my goodnight, told her to not eat lint anymore even though it would get rid of the mosquito bites and she looked at me and said...'what was the other thing you said?' 'Oh, yeah! Fingernails'...then pretends to bite her nails.

Only she didn't pretend.

Lordy be.

I can't wait to break her bad habit I helped her to start over the next few years.

The true test will be if the lint and fingernails actually helped repel the mosquitos this week. This just may become a weekly snack. And a green way to dispose of dryer lint.