Idea

Adriana is fascinated by crayons these days. As soon as she was out of bed and changed this morning, she found a piece of paper and demanded her box of washable crayons. She doodles lopsided circles, then points and signs "flower." She signs dog when she points and the purple lines trailing across her page. She presses down hard with bright colors to make bold scribbles. She also picks the wrappers of the crayon, which drives me slightly nuts, since I always wanted to keep my crayons as neat as possible and hated when I had to peel them in order to sharpen them again. And, finally, she chews on them. Other moms have always laughed when I hand Adriana something new to eat and tell her, "It's food. You should put it in your mouth." She's just never been the kind of kid who puts things in her mouth. But for some reason crayons appeal to her, and I have caught her sucking on them from time to time. I stop where when I catch her, but usually I just notice after the fact, when I see that there is some black drool on her chin or a streak of blue on her upper lip. I take comfort in the fact that the box says that they are nontoxic and that she doesn't seem to be taking actual bites out of them. Still, it got me thinking: eating crayons seems like pretty typical kid behavior, and the AAP is always concerned about kids getting enough vitamin D; couldn't Crayola just fortify the crayons and make everyone happy?