When your children eat an ice cream cone...

[Ginevra]

How much of a mess does it make? Are they conscious of averting drips or not? I'm not talking little toddlers, I think I mean over five years old, say. Just curious...

 

 

You can make more than one choice.

[BigMamaBird]

My elementary aged kids are oblivious.  My toddler is fastidious and will immediately demand all drips be cleaned up AT ONCE!

[Guest]

My kids kinda notice. I'm not sure three of the four care. One of mine is type A enough she tries to catch every drip and hates when she misses, but the rest are pretty meh about the sticky, much to my dismay!

[Guest]

My elementary aged kids are oblivious. My toddler is fastidious and will immediately demand all drips be cleaned up AT ONCE!

That's funny! I actually did not think kids were normally messy with cones, or oblivious. But I found out they can be completely oblivious, actually, and it surprised me. Hence the poll.

[Joker]

My 15 year dd has been aware of all messes and is crazy neat since she was about five. My 13 year dd only gets ice cream in a cup when in public because she will be wearing most of it otherwise.

[AnnE-girl]

I voted for how my kids are, and that I sometimes just make them get a cup to save myself some of the mess. It only saves some of the mess because the cups that ice cream places use tend to be so small for the scoop and the ice cream goes all over the edge of the cup.

[HRAAB]

In our family, I am the messiest ice cream cone eater.  Even when they were little, they were fairly neat.  Of course, now that I think about it, I usually sent them outside to eat ice cream cones.  My vote might be wrong.

[Butter]

Huh.  I don't think the little two have ever had ice cream in a cone.  It's not on purpose.  My older two don't like cones.

[Chris in VA]

Shoot. Now I want a waffle cone.

 

Like, rilly rilly much.

[Chris in VA]

DP

[T'smom]

The ice cream place we usually frequent will give the kids the ice cream cone upside down in a cup. Best of both worlds for me! The kids aren't crying because I won't let them have a cone, but it is not nearly as messy.

[redsquirrel]

My kids have always been very careful to get every last bit of ice cream, lol.  If it drips then I get to 'help' them and I swear I am only cleaning up a little bit of the drips...maybe take a small bite.  So, they are very careful to not let the drips get out of hand.

[Dmmetler]

My DD prefers the cone upside down in a cup-she has a hard time with "sticky". Sometimes sensory issues work in your favor.

[thessa516]

Soooo oblivious here. How can you not notice the ice cream running over your fingers, across your hand, down your arm, and dripping from the elbow?!?!?!?! GRRRRRrrr. Now I'm all upset about it.. hehe!  So yeah, I don't allow cones. Everybody gets ice cream in a cup.

[gardenmom5]

I have to point it out to them - they need to catch a drip.  this is how they learn.  I now only instruct dudeling - and he'd rather have a milkshake.

[PeachyDoodle]

Ironically, ds (not over 5) is quite fastidious and very neat when he eats, ice cream or otherwise. He's conscious of drips.

 

OTOH, dd (definitely OVER 5) has been known to eat like a pig at the trough. This is not limited to ice cream.

 

My dad used to have a solution for drippy ice cream cones -- he'd offer to "clean that up for you." You know, because he was so worried about the mess, not because he wanted a bite of your ice cream... ;)

[Little Women]

My kids make a mess until about 10yo.  Even when they see it, they don't really know how to maneuver their tongues so that licking the area actually gets the drip!    This means that I *have to* lick the edges every so often, to clean it up.   I think somewhere around 10yo, they realize that I'm actually getting some of their ice cream when I do this!  Then they learn very quickly to fix it themselves.  :)

[Renthead Mommy]

Until 2nd grade, everywhere we lived was the surface of the sun. So even in "winter" it wasn't cold enough (on winter ice cream days) for him to get his ice cream cone eating "speed" up fast enough to be able to enjoy a cone. So we always did cups. Due to that training as a little, he very, very rarley asks for a cone. Unfortunatelt, the few times he does ask, it is usually the worst possible situation for a cone (climbing into the 100 degree car??) so then I have to say no even if he was up to speed. But I think he has also figured out you can't get "things" on a cone. Mom is skeezed out by the idea of eating sprinkles, no way in hell are you eating them off a drippy cone, especially in my car. Plus in cups you have more add in options- m&m, reeses pieces, gummies and the like that don't work on a cone.

[xixstar]

Depends on the child. One won't make a single drop and the other can end up with it between her toes while wearing shoes.

[SparklyUnicorn]

They make a mess.  Worst thing is one of mine makes a mess and then is distraught over the mess. 

 

We don't eat a lot of ice cream cones.  If we do, it's outside where it doesn't matter.

 

 

[Guest]

Soooo oblivious here. How can you not notice the ice cream running over your fingers, across your hand, down your arm, and dripping from the elbow?!?!?!?! GRRRRRrrr. Now I'm all upset about it.. hehe! So yeah, I don't allow cones. Everybody gets ice cream in a cup.

 

BBWAHAHAHAHA! That was what I was thinking while I witnessed the oblivious eater!

[elegantlion]

Ds is extremely neat about eating, even ice cream cones. When he was a baby he still rarely made a mess. He hates having his face and hands dirty. 

[AmandaVT]

DS is a neat eater as well. Of course, when he was little I'd "help" him with the drips, so he quickly learned that if he wanted all his ice cream, he'd get the drips! I haven't had to help in a couple of summers now, so maybe 5? He's not a big fan of being messy though, so even as a little guy, he'd ask me for help to keep his cone tidy.

[RioSamba]

DS9 is capable of rising to any occasion with the apparent exception of eating an ice cream cone like a human being. I'm still having flashbacks related to his last attempt with chocolate soft serve at the zoo.

 

DD14 is much better, although still messier than I would expect.

 

Clearly, I've failed them!

[imagine.more]

This seems to be sorta a regional thing. Everyone I know from where I was born (Boston) eats ice cream cones super tidy with no problems even at like ages 5 and 6. I think ice cream in cones is a bit more common in New England, for some reason most people elsewhere I've seen seem to prefer bowls. I think they're seriously missing out. Also, outdoor ice cream stands are common so in NE heat with soft serve ice cream in a cone you just have no choice but to keep up with it. I also distinctly remember my mom kinda teaching us how to eat an ice cream cone correctly. My DH, not a messy guy, is only so-so at eating ice cream cones neatly but I give him a pass because he grew up in Wisconsin :)

 

I'd never made the regional connection until one of the women on Like Mother, Like Daughter mentioned it and I realized just how true it was, ha! 

 

I instruct my kids on how to properly eat a cone, it's right up there with shoe tying as a childhood skill ;) 

[Junie]

My kids will happily do an experiment for you next week.  :)  Right now, the two oldest are at camp, so my data set would be skewed. ;)

 

I can already tell you that dd4 is not a messy eater with cones because she refuses to eat ice cream. She eats the cone plain, like an odd-shaped cookie. This is one of my dc that we actually had genetic testing done for (for medical reasons) but it proved that she IS my child.  And she doesn't like ice cream?  What?!

[Guest]

This seems to be sorta a regional thing. Everyone I know from where I was born (Boston) eats ice cream cones super tidy with no problems even at like ages 5 and 6. I think ice cream in cones is a bit more common in New England, for some reason most people elsewhere I've seen seem to prefer bowls. I think they're seriously missing out. Also, outdoor ice cream stands are common so in NE heat with soft serve ice cream in a cone you just have no choice but to keep up with it. I also distinctly remember my mom kinda teaching us how to eat an ice cream cone correctly. My DH, not a messy guy, is only so-so at eating ice cream cones neatly but I give him a pass because he grew up in Wisconsin :)

 

I'd never made the regional connection until one of the women on Like Mother, Like Daughter mentioned it and I realized just how true it was, ha!

 

I instruct my kids on how to properly eat a cone, it's right up there with shoe tying as a childhood skill ;)

Maybe you have something, there. I wasn't really thinking tidy parents teach kids to eat them neatly.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Maybe you have something, there. I wasn't really thinking tidy parents teach kids to eat them neatly.

 

I don't know.  I am a born and bread New Englander.

[kirstenhill]

How my non-toddler kids eat ice cream cones seems to mostly fit their personalities...

 

The one that likes things very orderly eats ice cream cones in a completely neat manner

The kid that somehow makes a giant mess at everything he eats and is a whirlwind of general chaos makes a giant mess with ice cream cones

The kid that is pretty laid back and kind of middling between neat and messy does an okay job, but definitely misses some drips.

 

Meanwhile, despite being warned multiple times that it is a bad idea, the toddler continues to try and eat ice cream cones from the bottom up.  :lol:

[barnwife]

This seems to be sorta a regional thing. Everyone I know from where I was born (Boston) eats ice cream cones super tidy with no problems even at like ages 5 and 6. I think ice cream in cones is a bit more common in New England, for some reason most people elsewhere I've seen seem to prefer bowls. I think they're seriously missing out. Also, outdoor ice cream stands are common so in NE heat with soft serve ice cream in a cone you just have no choice but to keep up with it. I also distinctly remember my mom kinda teaching us how to eat an ice cream cone correctly. My DH, not a messy guy, is only so-so at eating ice cream cones neatly but I give him a pass because he grew up in Wisconsin :)

 

I'd never made the regional connection until one of the women on Like Mother, Like Daughter mentioned it and I realized just how true it was, ha! 

 

I instruct my kids on how to properly eat a cone, it's right up there with shoe tying as a childhood skill ;)

I take exception to this! ;) I was born and raised in WI, and my family and I can all eat ice cream neatly. Actually, a sister of mine could be a contender for neatest ice cream eater ever. I have no idea about my kids (I am unsure if they've ever had a cone). Hmmm....maybe an experiment is in order. 

 

My hypotheses is that the almost 2 yo would be an ecstatic, oblivious mess. The 3 yo would be trying to catch the drips, but not good at it so I'd help. And, the 5 yo would be learn quickly to catch his own drips.

 

 

[SKL]

One of my kids tries to be neat.  But she isn't really used to eating with a cone because I rarely buy ice cream, and when I do, it's usually in a cup.  So they haven't had much practice managing the melt.  It is a learned skill.  ;)  I remember as a kid, I used to walk down to the ice cream shop with my weekly allowance and set to work trying to eat the frozen yogurt before it dripped.  It was a lot of trial and error.

 

My second kid is gross.  She seems to like getting drippy and sticky.  I hold out no hope of her ever learning the trick of keeping the goo off her hands.  I'm just glad most places will serve in cups if asked.

 

My other issue is that my kids usually can't finish their ice cream.  So I end up with 2 melting ice creams to juggle (assuming I had the sense not to buy myself one).  I know, first world problems ....

[luuknam]

C is about as neat as me, B tends to end up with a goatee and mustache and sticky fingers but without drips on the ground.

[zoobie]

My messiest eater does not screw around with dessert. ;) We don't usually have a problem with ice cream cones, but we usually eat them inside and not outside in the heat. Maybe our favorite place makes really tight cones? I'm puzzled as to why it's not a messier proposition honestly. Now salsa...that I should just smear on my boobs as soon as it comes to the table and get it out of the way.

[Word Nerd]

It doesn't matter what the question is, I could never truthfully answer a poll "Yes, my kids are fastidious..."

 

They do fine with cones, though DD9 prefers a cup.

[Tanaqui]

When I was a child, I used to eat them from the bottom up. No joke, I was completely baffled as to why I was always so messy afterwards!

 

In contrast, the girls will not eat ice cream in cones if they have a choice. They get their ice cream in a bowl and eat the cone separately. (They do this with cereal too. It's a texture thing, I think...?)

 

But assuming your children eat top down, you can limit some drippage with marshmallows. Shove one in the bottom of the cone before you scoop in the ice cream. For extreme cases, shove the whole cone on top of another one before you hand it off to your kid. They plug up the hole in the bottom of the cone very nicely!

 

Of course, this only applies for dripping from the bottom. There's nothing to be done for dripping from the sides other than to stop giving such ginormous scoops.

[Tsuga]

I choose to believe that everyone who answered one of the first two choices has children over the age of 12.

 

Our older kids are aware, at 14G and 11B, of how to eat an ice cream cone.

 

The 8G is messy but tries.

 

The 6G is a hot mess and appears to be totally unaware of the relationship between heat and frozen cream and what it means to be a solid. She's just not there yet. We have her take a shower after the ice cream truck leaves.

[Ausmumof3]

My elementary aged kids are oblivious. My toddler is fastidious and will immediately demand all drips be cleaned up AT ONCE!

My 3yo currently eats his yoghurt with a spoon in one hand and a rag in the other to clean up the drips. He is obsessive about it.

 

My 6yo loves mess, noise and chaos.

[Guest]

My messiest eater does not screw around with dessert. ;) We don't usually have a problem with ice cream cones, but we usually eat them inside and not outside in the heat. Maybe our favorite place makes really tight cones? I'm puzzled as to why it's not a messier proposition honestly. Now salsa...that I should just smear on my boobs as soon as it comes to the table and get it out of the way[b/].

ROFL! Thank you for making my morning!

[Chris in VA]

Oo, just thought of something--are y'all referring to sugar cones (the cone shaped ice cream cones) or the weirdly shaped orange cones, or waffle cones? It makes a difference in the level of mess, IMO.

 

Also, I just realized, in revisiting this thread, that many times I would severely limit the amt of ice cream in the cone, so that it was only an inch or two above the actual cone. Does anyone else do that? We used to go to places like Baskin-Robbins with the boys, but we rarely went out for ice cream with dd; she mostly had cones at home or from McD's, where the ice cream isn't scooped but dispensed. It's hard to do the "one or two inches" thing when you scoop.

[KrissiK]

My kids do pretty good eating cones, but they aren't perfect.

 

And I wish I lived in the Arctic Circle right now. It's supposed to be over 100 degrees today. Ugh!

[Carrie12345]

We had an impromptu ice cream trip the other night with ds8's baseball team.

Ds8 had ice cream everywhere. EVERYWHERE!  It just kept flowing over his hands like a fountain.

After I cleaned him up, he fell into mud. Twice.

 

Ice cream really isn't the issue.  :toetap05:

[maize]

I voted for each of the first four options because I have kids in each category ;)

[Nan in Mass]

Mine all ate them neatly, but that was probably because we taught them how to eat cones. Nobody got a cone until they were old enough not to bite the bottom off (somewhere around 18mo?).  When they were very little, they only ate cones outside, with a bib on, on days when it was cool enough to be managable, and only after I had eaten the icecream down to a managable level.  An adult was on hand to help the cone stay upright, turn the cone and point out drips, swipe the chin occasionally, and do a bit of drip catching if things were getting out of hand.  They were highly motivated to hold their cone all by themselves, without an adult hand over theirs, so they caught on pretty quickly.  I probably ate the bottom frill of icecream off until they were about 4 or 5.  I'm not sure why I worried.  I can't remember ever eating a cone inside.  Icecream shops just have outside windows around here.  Drips wouldn't really have mattered.  It just was part of teaching them to eat everything neatly, I guess.  My grown-up son, my just-5-year-old nephew, and I got cones the other day.  It was interesting to watch my son being anxious about the 5yo's cone.  He looked at the big cone and said, "You aren't going to just hand that to him like that, are you?"  I didn't.  I pushed down on the top and ate off the most dangerous bits first.  I guess he doesn't remember me doing that for him or for his younger brother lol.  We both pointed out drips and twirled the cone so he could catch them.  Actually, the 5yo was pretty neat about it.  I had no idea whether he could eat a cone or not.  His mother's been a bit busy the last few years and some things like that have gone overboard.

 

Nan

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Depends on the child. One won't make a single drop and the other can end up with it between her toes while wearing shoes.

 

This captures my experience perfectly :lol:

[shawthorne44]

DD is about as messy as I am.  Which means not much, but I'll take off her nice clothes.  

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

We had an impromptu ice cream trip the other night with ds8's baseball team.

Ds8 had ice cream everywhere. EVERYWHERE!  It just kept flowing over his hands like a fountain.

After I cleaned him up, he fell into mud. Twice.

 

Ice cream really isn't the issue.  :toetap05:

 

I'm so sorry, but I'm really  :smilielol5:  :smilielol5:  :smilielol5: here!

[shawthorne44]

My messiest eater does not screw around with dessert. ;) We don't usually have a problem with ice cream cones, but we usually eat them inside and not outside in the heat. Maybe our favorite place makes really tight cones? I'm puzzled as to why it's not a messier proposition honestly. Now salsa...that I should just smear on my boobs as soon as it comes to the table and get it out of the way.

 

I can't eat ribs in public.   At home I wrap a bath towel around myself and plan on taking a shower afterward.  The back of my hair is popular location for BB sauce.  It isn't gross to watch me, just somehow the sauce is everywhere.  

[kristi26]

We don't get a lot of cones honestly because they do kinda stress me out.  However, I think I'm doing them an extreme disservice by not teaching them how to clean their cone. :lol: So we buy cones here and there and I train them...often by demonstrating on their cone...leaving me with more ice cream... :leaving:

 

But seriously, thinking mostly of YDS who is newly 6, he knows he is making a mess and will accept offered help to clean the cone.  He doesn't do a great job catching drips.  He can, however, deal with being a mess while he is eating. When he is done, he wants to be cleaned up quickly.  He looks for napkins, a sink, whatever.  DD9 doesn't like to be messy ever.  It stresses her out.  So she is quite good at catching drips.  The oldest two? They eat it so fast you start to question whether or not you remembered to get them one. :lol:

[MistyMountain]

One of mine does not mind it being on the face but the hands or anywhere else on the body they cannot stand having anything dirty or sticky, one is pretty neat and one is a complete mess all over and does not care.

[Miss Tick]

I still clearly remember the day last summer when I took my then 5yo to the ice cream parlor and didn't realize until after she ordered a chocolate cone that she was wearing a white shirt! I tried to be all Zen-Momma, even when she wanted to eat outside, and she did it! Not a single drop marring the white t-shirt! Once I pried my fingers loose from the arms of the plastic lawn chair I texted the accomplishment to anyone who might share my excitement. It is like those baby-milestone books end too soon. This was a huge one in my book. Huge.