Canadian Rite of Passage

When I was six, my parents were inside my school attending my first grade parent teacher interview.  I had been kicked outside to play at the playground.  I don't remember much of that day other than how painful it was to pull my tongue off that flag pole.  I have no clue what convinced me to try it.  Perhaps there had been other kids there encouraging me to try; I don't remember the lead up to it at all.  But that cold metal stuck to my tongue and the pure panic of not being able to pull it off is still with me.  Then the embarrassment of thinking someone might find me stuck to the pole.  I ripped my tongue off on my own and bled everywhere.  A layer of my tongue was stuck to the pole and I am sure my parents were some unimpressed with me.

And now the next generation in my family has experienced that Canadian rite of passage.

While I was in the store picking up a few things on Friday, Matt and the boys were waiting in the truck.  The boys love to eat icicles off of buildings during the winter (they will even steal them off of trucks, but we call those exhaust-cicles and try to convince they boys they are not for eating) and they asked Matt to grab them some off of the store.  The boys discovered that at -37C icicles are not a good idea.  Hunter stuck his right in his mouth and closed his lips around it.  It stuck!  Matt had to go into the back of the truck and try to gently pry Hunter's lips off of the icicle.  Cavan was able to pull his icicle off of his lips on his own, so it must not have been stuck too badly.  When I come out of the store, Matt was shaking he was laughing so hard while both boys are crying and screaming in the back seat.  They were more upset about the icicles being thrown away than the pain!

When we got home and into the light I could see that Hunter had really hurt his lips.  A layer of skin was missing and there was blood around his lips.  They still look pretty painful even a couple of days later.  Still pretty funny to think about though!

I am betting this will happen a few more times before they learn!