Saturday, December 10, 2005

Look Mommy, I painted a.......

Ok, I just had to write this story because for one, I neglected to add it to the year and a half life saga that I've been writing about and it is just too darn good to pass up.

I was reading Christy's journal yesterday and she had written in one of her posts about her boys and their artistic ability. Kids and art, well, they provide so many tales of their creations. This one however, I just have to write about.

I had planned a rather large going away party for Pat before he left for France. Everyone and their mother was invited, family, friends, neighbors and even their friends. So, I was preparing for this shindig, well, both Pat and I were. This was an all day preparation sort of thing as we knew for sure that at least 30 people were coming. And those were the ones that RSVP'd. As parties go, a person always plans for more.

So, we had planned a babysitter for the evening for our two year old and our 1 year old. Of course there would be alcohol and a late night ahead so we didn't want to have the kids around to witness all of us delinquents. Of course we wanted them to be on their best behavior so we fed them lunch and put them down for naps.

Why is it when a person has things to do, the wee ones seem to be difficult? Our one-year old went to sleep just fine but on the other side of the hall, our two year old decided that she just didn't feel like napping. That just figured. Of course we went in a couple of times to lay her back on her bed and tell her she needed to sleep but ultimately, we were of no help. She refused.

So, hubby and I decided that we would just crank up her monitor and let her play while we made salads, arranged furniture, etc. Afterall, she was simply playing with her dolls and her other toys and babbling away so we figured that if she was happy we would just do what we could.

Ok, well, we decided after about an hour and a half that we really should go and get her up. We felt bad leaving her in her room all by herself like that. Pat walked down to get her up and all of the sudden I hear, "Oh my God" and I dropped everything and ran down to see what tragedy had befallen our little girl....this time. He said to me while I was running down, "Oh man, what a mess, hun, you have got to come and help!" I was moving at lightening speed.

I reached her door in less than 5 seconds poked my head in and just as I did that I heard "Look Mommy, I painted a poopy picture". I smelled it right about the same time that she had said this and inside I was groaning. Then she said,"Isn't it pretty mommy?" I couldn't rightly be angry with her after realizing that she was proud of it.

We flicked on the lights and saw her 'art'. OH...MY....GOD!!!! That was pretty much all I could say in my head. And the smell...ugh! So, on top of preparing for this party, this mess needed to be cleaned up. OH, geez, did I feel horrible. Here's my 2 year old covered in ..... and Pat and I were up preparing for a party. What the hell kind of parents were we.

So, the task at hand was to clean this mess up. I asked Pat which he preferred to clean up, her or the wall. He chose the wall. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Wrong choice. I happily took the child to the tub, stripped her of her clothes and had her cleaned up in less than 5 minutes. Pat on the other hand, well, he was cleaning up for about a 1/2 hour. It was years later that Pat admitted that he made the wrong choice but only milliseconds after the words were out of his mouth that I KNEW he made the poorer choice.

Moral of this story? Don't ever assume your child is really playing dolls behind closed doors. If they are being too good and agreeable, always assume they are up to something.

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