Got an Idea of who he was and the type of work he did? Good. Now begins my story.
Our children share a room and every morning Jenn and I wake up hear to our amazing kids talking, singing, and their favorite-Screaming. Alizee is the instigator and Oliver jumps on the bandwagon as soon as he’s awake. She’s been known to put ALL of her stuffed animals and toys in his crib (to the point that it looks like one of those grappling hook games filled with toys and you are trying to pick out that little stuffed monkey in the back...and Oliver is that little monkey)
This morning was different. This morning Oliver was screeching, and Alizee was quiet. I remember thinking as i was waking up, “Alizee is quiet. This is good. All of my bedtime instructions to read and play quietly is finally paying off...”
Thats when I heard it. Her little voice.
“daaaaaaadddddyyyyy.”
(5 second pause)
“daaaaaaadddyyy”.
(8 second pause)
“daaaaAAAAADDDDddddyyy”.
I get up. I slide out of bed and walk out of our room and turn to go into the kids room. The door is open, and Alizee is standing is the middle of her room.
Covered in paint. She had paint in her hair. On her hands. On her nose. I turn and see that Oliver was also offered some of the brightly colored liquid fun. At least Alizee knows how to share, right?
We have a sealed plastic tub filled with craft items that we keep in the kids closet. It’s on the top shelf.
Through the magic of science, deduction, expensive forensic equipment, and the skills learned while watching a few episodes of “CSI“, we can go back and determine the events that took place. When our three year old started her pre-dawn artistic adventure, there were eight bottles of kids art paint (and thankfully, it was washable). By the time I walked in, the center of our kids room was not one of eight colors but a muddy mixture: brown.
At the furthest points from the center there were bright splatters of each color. a distant memory of what started out as red, green, yellow, brown, pink, orange, white, and blue colored paint sitting neatly in their bottles. It was both amazing and horrifying at the same time.
The wool rug. Her favorite frog chair. Her dresser. Her toys.
Handprints. Footprints. Splatter marks. Paint absolutely everywhere. Amazing.
After Jenn came to the doorway and we both stood there with our mouths wide open for what seemed like 10 minutes, we put on the parent hats and went into action. We were calm. We were deliberate. We were organized.
We are parents.
Alizee was put into the bath to soak and Jenn took care of Oliver and Sebastian and started laundry. I went to work on the room.
5 hours later. A few loads of laundry have been done, some coffee has been consumed, and the room is clean. We are pretty sure that nothing was permanently damaged (still waiting to see how the rug and frog chair turn out), and don’t forget about the very specific conversation reminding our three year old about when and where paint is used.
This isn’t the first time, and I would wager some serious money that it wont be the last, that something has like this has happened. I lovingly refer to our kids as ”Malfunctioning robots“, make the event a learning experience, and move on.
It’s not always easy being a parent, but today it was certainty colorful.
The pictures are worth a thousand words...
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