A Fine-Toothed Comb

While combing sand out of my toddler's hair this morning ... Wellllll, perhaps I'll back up a bit. :)

To begin, I spent a lovely morning with other mommies celebrating our kiddos being back-to-school.  We sat outside, enjoyed some delicious refreshments, listened to the little kids playing happily (most of the time) and enjoyed some delightful, adult conversation.  From the deck I could see my two girls playing and I was happy to see them getting along with the other kids well.  It was really a wonderful morning ... but eventually duty called and it was time to gather our parts and head home.  Upon collecting the girls I discovered that Lydia was covered, quite literally, from head to toe in sand.  I knew she was playing in the sand box, but I hadn't realized she was playing IN the sand box!

You might ask, "What would you have done if you had known that she was enjoying the sand box so very, very much?"  To which I would point back to the lovely morning I was having and the fact that my girls were playing so happily ... albeit sandily.  I guess as long as the girls were still safe, I would still let them play in the sand box ... but perhaps I would have made her wear a swim cap! :)


And so, back to the combing of the sand... 

Upon returning home, I decided a bath was in order.  Unfortunately, it is seemingly impossible to get sand out of hair.  (Perhaps you beach friends could give us land-lubbers some helpful tips!)  I washed and rinsed and washed and rinsed and I could still feel little gritty bits in her hair.  Some did rinse out as Ashley was quick to point out that the bottom of the tub was crunchy.  But, eventually I gave up and decided to try combing it out ... hence our blog title of the day.  Lydia sat so nicely as I combed with my fine-toothed comb ... and combed and combed and combed.

And as I was combing I thought about the phrase, "a fine-toothed comb" and thought, "who came up with that?"  And that little question led me to quite a rabbit-trail of thoughts:  What about all those other silly things we say?

• Run the gauntlet,
• A piece of cake,
• Apple of my eye,
• Beat around the bush,
• Doozy,
• Go out on a limb,
• Fuddy-Duddy,
• High on the hog,
• Mumbo-Jumbo,
• Rabbit-trail... You get the idea...

Now, think about this:  all these words came from somewhere.  Someone said it first and then other people started saying it and pretty soon that strange word or phrase became an idiom and was adopted into our vocabulary.  So my challenge to you is:  what word or phrase can you share that could someday become a regular part of our conversation?  You could make a real contribution!  Or at the very least, entertain us. :)

To get you started, I'll share a couple that I came up with:

"To share a kidney" ~ we use this in reference to our son and his buddy and their in-ability to be separated from one another for longer that 12 hours.

"To be booped" ~ this originated with the kids and the many times they set-up booby-traps in an attempt to scare us.  Synonymous with being sorta scared ... mainly not.

So ... send me your -Isms with a brief definition and I'll post my favorites.
We'll all broaden our vocabulary!