Paint disaster

How is it that it’s been almost a month since I last posted?  My focus turned to other things.  I haven’t even written about our trip to visit grandparents in Wichita.  Maybe soon…

However, I’ve been jolted out of my non-blogging status by an incident this afternoon.  I had some work to do in the basement, so I asked the kids to amuse themselves for a while.  “No eating,” I said, remembering the bag-o-marshmallows eating incident from last week.  “Or leaving the yard.  Or doing things that your conscious tells you are maybe not a good idea.”  I asked them to get along and be good because after I was done working I’d be tired and my “bucket” might be a little low.

I didn’t specify that they shouldn’t take out the paints.  That’ll be on the list next time.

So after doing some heavy, dirty not-really-fun work in the basement for a half hour, I come upstairs to see this:

And I almost sat down on the floor and wept.

I know why they did it, you see, I’d just rearranged all the art supplies.  The painting supplies had been previously stashed in several different places, but now they are all together in organized glory in the old general art supply drawer.  There’s paint they’ve never seen before.  There’s new fingerpainting paper.  There are brushes galore.

I did some heavy breathing.  With my eyebrows lifted high, I firmly extolled upon Andrew and Sylvia the importance of getting permission from an adult before initiating a painting project.  I questioned the wisdom of dumping out the entire contents of large bottles of paint.

The two of them kept catching each others’ eyes and smiling; then repressing the smile and trying to look apologetic.  It wasn’t working.  The giggles that wafted from the bathroom as they washed the brushes ticked me off.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of big, messy painting experiences.  I just like to do them outdoors.

In this case, there was all sorts of paint tucked into the seams in our hardwood floors.  Colorful:)  Very hard to remove.

I did consider crying, but it’s really not my style.  So although I wasn’t really in the mood, I took out my camera to capture the disaster pre-cleanup.  I sent the kids to their rooms for 15 minutes while I did the bulk of the cleanup.  There was so much paint on the floor that it seemed that having them wipe it up would have brought things from a localized disaster to a full-room/house paint bomb.  Their main consequence is that there’s no painting until July.

Oh those kids, those kids.  You should have seen the mischievous twinkle in their eyes.  I love them so much, and I’m so proud of them.  Being their mom can sometimes lead me to long for Happy Hour.

Fondly,

Althea