On the way home from a trip to the Children's Museum, the boys asked for a piece of gum. With reminders to keep it in their mouths, I handed back a piece for each. (Note: I'm not a gum chewer, but John is and usually has a spearmint pack in each car. The boys know this.)

About 2/3 of the way home, Daniel asked from the back seat, "How much longer until we get home?" It's not a long trip (about 15 minutes) and should be quite familiar to him, but I said, "Just a few more minutes." Continued silence from the back seat. A few minutes later:

"Mom, I don't know how this happened, but my gum fell out of my mouth and got all over my church shirt."

Still on the highway, but glance in the rear view mirror to see that he has strands of gum stretched out over both hands, his coat, and shirt. Clearly he'd attempted to rectify an error (hence, asking how much time he had) and made the situation worse.

"Don't move any more! You're just making it worse" I said. (OK, shouted.) He sat miserably in the back seat the rest of the way home while I took the opportunity to remind him that this was exactly why gum had to stay in the mouth and that he would no longer be allowed to chew gum.

"Well," he countered, "you won't be making the rules for me when I'm a grown up so I can chew gum then!"

Dream big, my friend.

When we got home, John got his hands cleaned up in the sink so that we could get the coat off. Then he was able to scrape the rest of the gum off the coat and shirt, so all's well that ends well.