One of my kids ate their own hair today.

We were working on writing and he had an awesome story going about a murderous Barbie taking over a summer camp.  I looked up at him at one point and he’d plucked a hair out of his head and was squinting at it.  He said, “This is so I can make my twin.” 

Excuse me?  Were we discussing cloning and I missed it?  He said, “No really, I can.”  And then he popped it in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.  How do you even reprimand that?

I said, “Did you seriously just eat your own hair?”  To me, hair in my mouth is one of the most uncomfortable and disgusting feelings I can imagine.  He was totally cool with it, though, like he’d just filled us all in on his favorite afterschool snack. 

But what about all the dirt and environmental stuff that might be on your hair?  “No, it’s fine,” he said, “I just took a bath.”  When? When did you just take a bath? “Um….hhmm…this morning?”  If you had to think about it, it’s been too long.

What if there’s lice? “Oh, no, then that’s perfect!  Lice are bad!  I’ll eat the bad lice!”  Oh, no, dude…don’t eat lice.  You’re a primate and all, but that’s not really how we roll up here at the top of the food chain. 

I decided to let it go for the time being so that everyone could settle back down and get to work.  After a few minutes, though, a kid said to me, “Hey, why are you still looking at him like that?”  I said that I just couldn’t believe he’d actually eaten his own hair.

“What?” he said, “It’s fruity and stuff!”  Then, “And it has fleas…” 

Oh, Lord, help me.  Last year I had to have a conversation with this kid about how his tropical fruit flavored chapstick was not a snack.  I think we’ve escalated.  Blech.