Exhibit A. My Two-Year Old And Me
Exhibit B. A Mostly Empty Jar of Peanut Butter
Exhibit C. The Boys' Room
Exhibit D. My Face at the End of the Peanut Butter Day
"This is the story all about how my life got turned upside down..."
One day last week I was feeling the effects of a lingering cold so I took some medicine. I didn't realize this cold medicine would make me drowsy, so on top of not feeling 100% I was now sleepy. Andrew and James were playing together fairly well but Andrew continually informed me of their movements. Mommy, we want to play with X toy. Mommy, we killed the bad guys. Mommy, James is Y. Mommy, can we go visit Z?
I had enough of the minute by minute updates so I turned to Andrew and said (drum role, please),
"Please stop telling me what you and James are doing. Just go play in your room. Don't tell me what you are doing, just go play."
Oh, boy.
Well, after fighting it for a couple of hours I told the boys I was going to lay down in my room and they were to stay in theirs. My head hit the pillow and I was out for about fifteen minutes. I awoke and James came into my room smacking his hands together. I thought he had been in the hand soap so I jumped up and took him to the bathroom.
Nope, it wasn't soap. Once in the light of the bathroom I looked down at James arms. He was covered in peanut butter from finger tip to elbow. Both hands. Had to get the dish soap out to clean him off. As I was scrubbing him Andrew walked into the bathroom carrying Exhibit B.
"Mommy, James SPREAD PEANUT BUTTER ON THE CARPET."
Oh, no. Oh, please no.
Oh, yes. See Exhibit C. Notice the medium shag cream-colored carpet? There was peanut butter smeared into about a third of the surface area in their bedroom. I assessed the damage after putting the boys in the shower. I was so upset I couldn't even take pictures of the mess.
Please consult Exhibit A. to see why I didn't stay mad. Plus, after an event last year where Andrew dumped a bottle of vitamin-E oil on my mother-in-law's couch I had a very good carpet and upholstery cleaner in the cabinet. It took the creamy peanut butter goo right out and didn't even leave a nutty smell.
Plus, I realized again how literal Andrew is. He explicitly obeyed my instructions and even tried to clean up the peanut butter mess in his room with a wet wipe. He usually sounds the alarm if James tries to do anything not kosher, but because I had told him to leave me alone he waited until I noticed what was going on without any help from him.
It was a long day. Consult Exhibit D.
8 comments:
That's horrible! Good thing kids have charming smiles, huh? And wet peanut butter is one of the worst smells to me. Bet that bathroom reeked of it as they were showering. Again, I must quote a line I love from a kids' book called "Clean as a Whistle": Isn't is fun to be young and dirty, instead of grown up and clean and thirty?
I have to remind myself of this mindset of kids when I see an awful mess they've made and are obviously enjoying the dirtiness of it. Like when Micah had grime on his fingers the other day from touching the hubcaps on the van. He was licking it off and in response to my protest replied that he liked it in his mouth. :) Love you girl. You're quite a mom with those two very boy-ey boys.
Thanks for the encouragement, Rose! And the quote.
Eeeeeew, hubcap grime. That is serious boy-gross-ness.
(:
i love the exhibit d picture - i have that face some days, too - even w/o a peanut butter ordeal. :)
by the way, kai was on my lap as i was reading this and pointing/smiling at the picture of "miss amy". (it was the smiling one - not exhibit d)
;)
I do believe that God makes them cute on purpose. It is the only thing that saves their lives some days!
What cleaner did you use? I'm going to keep some on hand, I think!
Nikki, the cleaner was a milky liquid without a name. The label just has the name of the upholstery cleaners and their phone number. It's great stuff, though. It took out dried tomato juice the other day.
Glad you don't have any pb messes, Tori. (:
Man, reminds me of some stories Mom has told us about when we were kids....I'm glad all worked out well. Thanks for the great story. I was hooked all the way to the end. :)
hilarious. sorry, but it's true.
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