MARK MY WORD: EATING CAN BE A STICKY PROPOSITION FOR KIDS

Children absorb food through their skin. It's only when they get older that food starts finding its way into their mouths.

Kids crave peanut butter. Chunky or smooth, it is the basic building block of life.

Without peanut butter, I'm convinced, today's kids would be vegetables by the time they turned 10.

Of course, there was no peanut butter at the dawn of civilization. Man spent centuries learning how to read, write, do math and the Macarena.

But as civilization evolved, it was only natural that peanut butter would be invented. Parents needed something to feed their kids until they grew old enough to want more sophisticated food, like pizza.

The old mush just didn't cut it anymore.

Besides, peanut butter is nutritious. As an informed parent, you know that's the case because the manufacturer puts the ingredients on the label. Those ingredients include hydrogenated vegetable oil and virtually every other kind of oil known to man. And yes, there are even ground-up peanuts in those jars of peanut butter. Of course, it would be a lot smaller jar without all that vegetable oil.

Our oldest daughter, Becca, eats peanut butter by the spoonful. This is a recent development. Previously, she only ate chicken fingers, hot dogs or fish sticks. So naturally, Joni and I were thrilled when our 5-year-old added peanut butter to her diet.

But we quickly discovered the reason why it's better as a sandwich. The bread keeps the sticky brown stuff from getting all over your children and the furniture.

The other night, Becca ran into the living room, holding her arms outstretched like a doctor preparing for surgery. Her hands were covered with gooey peanut butter. Earlier in the evening, she had been using a spoon. Somewhere along the line, it apparently became handy to use her hands.

I rushed Becca back into the kitchen and helped her wash her hands. Even with soap, peanut butter is hard to remove. You almost need nuclear weapons to remove it.

The rest of the evening, I kept finding little piles of peanut butter all over the house. I couldn't help but wonder if we had mutant peanut butter that was cloning itself.

That would have put the peanut butter companies out of business, but it also would have made life sticky for us.

Fortunately, the peanut butter didn't take over our home. But we're not taking any chances. We keep a close watch on the peanut butter sitting on the shelf. If I see it spreading to the next shelf, I'll call the cops.

Our youngest daughter, 15-month-old Bailey, is typically a messy eater. Becca doesn't compare to Bailey when it comes to scattering food all over the place. Children absorb food through their skin. It's only when they get older that food starts finding its way into their mouths.

Kids are always spilling food too. That's good news for the world's lower life forms such as bugs, who would be extinct by now were it not for all that dropped food.

Bugs are in for a treat today. Some of that Easter candy is bound to drop their way.

Of course, most of it will end up in the mouths of our children, who do a better job of holding onto candy than regular food.

The peanut butter probably won't get off the shelf today -- unless, of course, the Easter bunny gets hungry.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.