I mentioned in this post that we recently replaced the area rug in our family room. We went with a simple, casual look — one of those braided wool rugs. We like it, it seems to work with our furniture, and as mentioned previously, it is the appropriate color for hiding cat puke stains.

But there’s a slight problem.

The rug came with a nice little piece of paper informing us of a feature an issue that this type of rug has. In essence, the paper read: “This rug will initially shed fibers. This is normal and is no cause for alarm. Simply vacuum up the fibers and in time, the shedding will stop.”

No problem. We have a vacuum, and we’re not particularly picky about whether or not our rugs are shedding.

But it didn’t take long to realize that the shedding issue would not just affect us. It would affect L. as well. As he crawls around the room, these fibers, now freed from their constrictive home in the depths of the rug, ball themselves into little fuzzers and cling to L.’s clothing. Moments later, he notices these little fuzzers and decides that they look mighty appetizing.

Pop! Into the mouth they go.

At first, the problem wasn’t too serious. If I didn’t catch him as he popped the fuzzer in his mouth, he’d chew and chew and chew on it. If I had written this post a few weeks ago, I would have entitled it Carpet Fuzz: The New Gum. Because that’s what it looked like — as if L. were chewing a stick of Juicy Fruit. Being a mom, I had no qualms about sticking a finger in his mouth and fishing out the fibrous culprit. But I wanted this to stop. So I dedicated myself to diligent vacuuming and even scouring the rug for loose fibers between vacuumings. Problem solved.

Or not.

L. was not about to be so easily dissuaded.

It didn’t take him long to realize that if he crawled to the edge of the rug, he could indeed harvest his own fuzzers from the carpet. All he had to do was find a fiber or two that was slightly loose and pull and pull and pull on it and…voila! He could create his own in-between-meal snacks.

So now vacuuming and scouring weren’t good enough. I had to be extra-vigilant in watching him to make sure he wasn’t popping or chewing on fuzzers.

But now for another twist.

Apparently L. has decided he needs more roughage in his diet — you know, that hard-to-digest stuff that aids your digestive system. Things like legumes and bran and carpet fuzzers. No longer content to chew the fuzzers, he now insists upon swallowing them.

And so, if you were to walk in our home on any given day, you might witness the following scene.

Mom is in the kitchen cleaning the countertops.

L. perches next to the family room rug, searching for loose fibers. Success! He yanks a bunch off, steals a glance to see if mom is looking and raises his hand to his mouth.

Mom looks up right as L. sticks the mass in his mouth.

“Nooooooooooooooo,” calls Mom as she drops the cloth and sprints around the edge of the counter. She stumbles toward the rug, hand out-stretched, ready to swipe the fuzz from the inside of a toddler cheek.

L., sensing impending doom (or at least a threat to his planned snack) works his mouth furiously to get the clump of carpet down his throat. Success!

Mom crashes to the ground, sticks her finger in his mouth but – alas! – it’s gone.

Sigh… I’m trying to look at the bright side of this. First of all, I’m developing great skill in the “finger sweep” — and isn’t that one of the first steps in CPR, you know, in clearing the airway or something? Second…um…okay, I don’t have a second. But I’m hoping this stage passes soon. And that he decides to eat something, oh I don’t know, edible, instead of parts of our rug.