Diaper rash ointment works wonders for all kinds of things.

My husband nicked the corner of his mouth while shaving and was complaining about how the little cut wouldn't heal.

I agreed, it sucks to have a little cut at the corner of your mouth that won't heal because of constant eating and yammering.

That night he asked me if we had anything he could put on the little cut to help it heal. He seems to think he's trained himself so he doesn't sleep with his mouth hanging open, and for some reason thinks sleeping with his mouth open is not a good thing, mostly because that means he's slobbering on his pillow. I've caught him plenty of times sleeping with his mouth hanging open and slobbering just as much as Mateo does while teething, so I'm not sure who he thinks he's fooling. I guess his plan was to put something on the cut, and since he sleeps tight lipped, the "something" will help his cut heal.

"I have some lip stuff in my basket," I told him. I have an extensive beauty supply that I hold in an Easter basket I got about 10 or more years ago. My beauty regime consists of foundation, concealer, powder, sometimes mascara, and chap stick I hardly use. What can I say, no fuss, no muss.

For some reason he didn't want to use chap stick.

"Don't we have petroleum jelly or something? For Mateo? Didn't we buy some?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I don't know where it is," I told him. "It might be in his room, but I don't know where."

I think I bought the jelly to put on Mateo's penis after we brought him home from the hospital. It was supposed to help the healing process or protect the wound or something. Then I found out you're not supposed to do that. So I don't think it was ever used.

"Do you think I can go into his room and look for it without waking him up?" he asked me.

I raised my eyebrows in question. "Maybe?" I said. You wake him up, you put him back to sleep, I was thinking.

He was in there for a bit, then came out and into our room.

"I didn't find it. But I figured I'll use his butt stuff since it's basically petroleum jelly and it's supposed to help skin heal!" he told me proudly. He's so...innovative!

I looked up at him.

"Are you sure want to do that?" I asked.

He looked at me. He had his finger pointed upwards with the jelly smeared on the tip.

"Why?"

"Can you be sure neither one of us has put some on our finger, wiped his butt with it, and then put some more on our finger, which would then contaminate the opening of the tube with his butt germs?"

"Oh."

He immediately turned around, went into the bathroom, and washed off his finger.

While he was in the bathroom, I remembered I had moved Mateo's miscellaneous medical stuff into the towel closet when he was old enough to grab things.

On our bathroom counter stands the petroleum jelly. I hope he notice if the surface was broken or not before he slabbed some jelly on his open cut.