Granddaughters, Glitter and Grammies with the Flu.

I have this box with giant bottles of glitter glue sitting in my basement.  Awhile back, I was instructing middle-school girl's groups, and it was through that (as well as raising 3 girls of my own), that I discovered there is no such thing as too much glitter.  Ever.  Even industrial strength cardboard will roll into itself when five pounds of wet glitter glue has been painted onto it.  It also does not wash out of clothing, but will spread glitter to any other items you may have been foolish enough to toss into the washer along with the sparkly thing that used to be a garment.

Today I brought some of the stuff up for my granddaughter to try.  She liked the gold one best, but the lid was hopelessly glued shut.  I twisted the thing, turned it, twisted it some more. Brooklyn was watching me, so I had to bite my tongue and in a cheerful voice, sounding like an over caffinated cartoon character, I said, “Oh that’s okay!  We’ll just try something else!”  

 I reached into the drawer for the pliers.  Of course, they were too small to fit around the lid, so I ‘tapped’ the side of the thing with them.  Perhaps I should mention here that I have been sick all week and it is possible that my patience level might be slightly lower than usual, so it is also possible that my gentle ‘tap’ to loosen the lid, may have been a bit harder than I intended. Suddenly, the entire top of the bottle broke off and the room was awash in globs of golden sparkles.  How much glitter can an 8 oz bottle hold you ask?  I can now tell you with certainty, that it holds enough to generously cover my favourite sweater, t-shirt, hair, face and feet, the counter, wall, sink, taps, window shade and floor. I could also give a pretty solid guess as to the velocity and splatter pattern of said globules of glitter.

I was alone during the sparkle explosion though, standing there glittering in my kitchen, frozen smile still, firmly in place. With my puffy eyes, red nose, and stomach doing back flips from the flu, no one at all, was witness to my shimmering state of splendour. Brooklyn, with a typical 4 year old attention span had already left the room, happily deciding she wanted to play with her Barbies instead.

This Grammy is now heating up her wheat bag, pouring a hot cup of coffee and while I may have lost the sparkle in my eye, there is enough of it on the rest of me to last until it comes back.  Oh, by the way, I have now discovered there really IS such a thing as too much glitter.....