Blue Spray of DEATH

Years ago when our first 6 children were all under the age 10 we developed a punishment called the 'Blue Spray of Death'. It came about because of a particularly mouthy stage of life that our kids refined by watching and mimicking their peers while we lived in the 'hood' in Lansing, MI. The spray of death was actually "Cool Mint Chloraseptic". In the end it was rarely used because we quickly discovered that it was ineffective--for some reason our children actually didn't care that it tasted awful and made their mouth numb...so we quickly graduated to 'HOT Chicken Sauce' which is the hottest chili sauce we could find and still feel okay about applying to the tongue of our young offspring. Ironically, we still have this same bottle of Chloraseptic 7+ years later; it is still rarely used (but now only for canker sores and sore throats) and we still call it 'the blue spray of death'.

Tonight Claire was having a particularly tough time and ran off towards her room screaming (yet again). When she screams like this she is supposed to receive a dose of the 'HOT Chicken Sauce' and so I followed her to her room to administer the punishment. Unfortunately, when I tried to squirt the sauce into her mouth I had failed to unscrew the cap completely and not knowing this I just squeezed the bottle a little extra and then all of a sudden a giant glob about the size of a quarter fell onto her tongue. (previous to this a large amount was nothing more than the size of a pea) Well, Claire totally lost it, I had her spit it out in the toilet, and I, feeling just horrible, was trying to offer her all one could to relieve her burning mouth. While she was drinking milk and whimpering I remembered a potential help and offered "Claire, would you like a squirt of the 'blue spray of death'?" Well, the poor thing had no idea what this was...she clamped her hand over her mouth, while vigorously shaking her head 'NO!' and cried in some combination of fear and horror. Unfortunately, Ike, Nate, and Eli were all in the room and they busted out in load guffaws (showing once again how ineffective this 'DEATH spray' actually was) because of course they understood that I was actually offering to neutralize the punishment that I had just given. It was honestly very funny...but as a parent I think that there was even a greater irony...We only called it the 'Blue Spray of DEATH' to make it sound like the most horrific punishment imaginable and not until now, when I was trying to be kind did anyone actually appreciate the words. Poor Claire.