The absurdity started last night. I had (somewhat hesitantly) taken my kids with me grocery shopping, not wanting to wait until my husband got home. If you have small children, you understand. You can simply move faster and more easily when you are alone. But when it gets dark so early, I just don’t feel like heading out. So, to the store with the kids, I ventured. We were having a successful trip. We were moving along, kids were for the most part keeping up and we even had the special treat of running into Grandma.
But then came the dairy aisle. I guess I should have known better. The thought did cross my mind . . . I let my son carry the glass jar of peanut butter. I warned him to be especially careful with it, but somehow . . . I really don’t know how it happened . . . yep, you guessed it, the glass broke and there was my son trying to catch all the peanut butter in his hand as he started to cry. I pleasantly hollered to the lady at the end of the aisle to ask if she saw a store employee anywhere and sensing the urgency in my voice and my son’s shrieks, she graciously went and found someone. Thankfully, he only had the smallest nick on his hand from the glass, but between the two of us, the whole car smelled of peanut butter. End of story? Nope.
This morning, I found that my internet was out (and still is at the time I’m writing this). Usually, no biggie. I would enjoy a computer free day if only I had my post ready for tomorrow. Oh well. I sat this afternoon at my computer and just wrote in Word, hoping for an opportunity later to get it online.
That wasn’t too bad in itself. It was the little (no-nap-today) voice who notified me from the bottom of the stairs that there was paint all over her pretty pink dress. Hmmmm…. Who gave her paint? Well, Sweet Boy apparently got out my puffy paint (how did he even find it?) and left it downstairs. I peeked around the corner of the stairs only to see her and her dress covered in RED puffy paint. Then I found a little on the couch and a lot on the off-white carpet that covers my family room floor. Puffy paint is used to write on fabric! Would it ever come out?
Using up just about all of my amazing Kirby Foam Carpet & Fabric Cleaner, a great brush and a lot of elbow grease, I got about 95% of it out. You’ll only notice a pink hue if you’re really looking. So next, came the task of de-painting my daughter. I put her in the bath and surprisingly found that conditioner helped get most of the paint out of her hair.
While she was having fun playing in the bath, I began to clean the toilet. Until I heard two large “bubbles” emerge out of her body. I looked at her and saw “it” in the tub. I won’t even say what happened next, but you can imagine. Before I attempted to sanitize the tub, I put her in my shower and proceeded to drench half of my bathroom with the shower hose. (To her defense, the next pull-up change wasn’t friendly – maybe she had a bit of a tummy ache.)
That was when I went for the M&M’s. I keep a jar of those wonderful candy-coated chocolates in both bathrooms to reward Sweet Girl for successful potty trips. But today, they were for me! I grabbed a handful, ok a large handful, and popped them in my mouth. No guilt!
After cleaning the tub, I found my sweet, precious son dragging a metal spoon along the walls in our upstairs hallway. He had wanted a spoonful of Peanut Butter (of all things!) and brought it up to me. Only in all his dragging, it looks like he took a gray crayon all over the wall. Terrific.
I grabbed another couple handfuls of M&M’s and had to laugh. This is life with kids. The ups, the downs . . . and the memories.
How are you doing today?
My name is Kristen. I'm a former Wedding & Event Planner blogging about fun ways to celebrate each and every day and the special occasions of life. Here you'll find inspiration for family fun, children's activities, party planning and a faith-filled life. 
He he he, reading this I can’t tell if you have two children or 10. It makes me smile, because my day was quite similar, except my chocolate stash is in the kitchen : )
I love this! I can relate to it all especially the potty candy and paint.
I’ve had some of those days before. It’s hard, but it’s really best to just laugh your way through it. Obviously, with the way you dealt with it, you’ve done this a time or two before!
sounds like a day in my life with my 5 who are now 3-8 🙂 hang in there! oh, and when they were younger, there were days when i would stash M&Ms in my pockets… i’m not kidding!
Wow! Sounds like you had a REALLY rough day. It’s amazing you can laugh it all off. I have two little girls, 2 yrs and 9 months. I have had my share of catastrophes on the home front… the latest being an entire Cherry flavored bottle of NyQuil dropped on my white carpet. We all were pretty sick so somehow the cap didn’t get screwed on right. My oldest was feeling better and wanted to play with it. Still having trouble getting it out. Maybe your remedy might help. Thanks for the post and the boost of encouragement.
Sounds like you succeeded to keep a bright spirit, congratulations! the other day while I was on the phone, my 3 year old was washing his hands and used the opportunity to start and splash around in the bathroom. By the time I got there the bathroom was the equivalent of an aquarium. I had to remove the top drawer and pour out about an inch of water. Did I mention I keep my pearls, jewellery and watches in that drawer? I was not amused. And there were no M&Ms in the bathroom. My mistake 😉
Oh Tamara! All your jewelry! You needed more than M&M’s. I would have needed an entire candy store.
OMG I had a day so similiar to this 25 years ago! First I was painting a wall in my master bedroom, I had checked my 2 girls several times and they were fine close to the end I hurried to finish. #1 daughter asks to go outside to play I look up and she has finger paint all over her! I go into the kitchen & #2 has paint on her & my entire kitchen is fingerpainted!I get them in the tub & washed, leaving them there I kinda clean the kitchen. Hearing giggling & splashing I check on them. They have every towel in the tub & are tossing them soaking wet to the ceiling! Inches of water on the floor and no towels. I dried them with kitchen towels , set them in front of the tv and tried to dry out the bathroom. 5 minutes into this I hear giggling, not again! I peek into the livingroom #2 is standing on my coffee table #1 had just jumped off onto a bean bag chair with a whole in it. Yep a stream of those little beads came flying out and half of the bag was all over the room. I gave up! The wall wasn’t even finished yet, the roller had dried out I was gone for so long. I only wish I had M&Ms
Oh Bonnie, maybe I should send you a bag of M&M’s for just reliving the day!! What a mess you had to deal with. Thanks for sharing it with us.
oh, my gosh. we have TOTALLY had those days. And seriously, all you can do is laugh about it (not until the next day, though) and then eat some chocolate. Days like these bind us together. 🙂