The Red Thread

When a baby has the hiccups it is customary to stick a small, wadded up piece of red thread in the middle of their forehead using a bit of saliva. Icky, you say? Perhaps but also strangely effective. Peepers is frequently afflicted with the hiccups and so I generally find him "threaded" when in my mother-in-law's care. The other day my cousin was eager to try this out when Peepers got the hiccups while visiting her home. Very excited about this, she came back with the biggest wad of thread ever and set me straight to work. Never having done it myself before, I hesitantly stuffed the thread in my mouth and began the process of wetting it. I pulled it out (it got a little stuck in my braces) and rolled it stupidly between my finger and thumb. We decided that we had way too much thread after I tried to stick it to Peeper's forehead and it looked like he himself was becoming unraveled. So we clipped some off and tried again. "Okay now ball it up!"...she instructed. "I am! I'm trying to!"...I lamented. Once again I pressed it against Peepers forehead. By this time his eyes were getting rounder and more frightened as I juggled him with one hand and balled thread with the other. but in the end, I just didn't have the knack. I flicked the thread into the trash and gave my disappointed cousin the look of defeat. What kind of mother am I anyway? How will Peepers ever survive his hiccups if I can't even ball up some slobbered on thread? And better yet, I still don't even know how to use the Egg. We're doomed.