Lesson Learned

Ok - so I've read several books on the 'Stubborn Child', trying to understand my daughter better, but after yesterday I realize that she comes by things naturally. As if my experiences last weekend with Calum, some flour, and his bedroom weren't enough, yesterday I finally learned that I needed to remove ALL powdery substances from the kid's room. Why you ask? Well, if you have to ask then the following has never happened to you & probably for good reason, you're smarter than me. Let me set the scene...

My friend and I are catching up in the kitchen. She's eating some lunch, I'm folding some clothes. Babies are asleep and three little friends are playing in the bedroom. It's that 'sensitive period' for closing doors around here - 'I need my privacy,' so the door to the bedroom was closed/ajar. I start smelling the sweet scent of baby powder but it doesn't even register as a potential hazard...I'm folding laundry remember, all baby laundry smells to some degree of baby powder. Until WHAM! The scent is so strong and my slow-ass synapses finally fire in my brain - oh shit, baby powder, a closed door, and three kids. I best investigate.

I open the door only to be greeted by the thick fog, yes fog, of baby powder. It was as if I'd stepped into a smoky bar at 2 in the afternoon. I had to close the door quickly so the children wouldn't see my face - the huge smile and heaving chest from laughing would NOT indicate that this scene was unacceptable. Once my friend and I regained our composure we opened the door and dealt with the kids, picking them up off the floor as they practiced 'swimming' in the layer of powder. It's amazing we didn't hear coughing or choking. We dusted the kids off and sent them out! Funny - for the whole hour prior to this incident they were all over us -- Mommy this & Mommy that -- but for the hour and a half it took us to clean the room, the kids were miraculously able to play on their own - no fights, no interventions, no attention needed from the mommy's. Nope - they left us to our work/lesson...cleaning a room full of baby powder. Where do you even start on a project like that one?!

So, the next time I say to myself, 'Sometimes Ella and Calum just have to learn things the hard way, ' I won't be so judgmental. I'm the idiot that had to clean flour & baby powder up from a bedroom twice in one week. Oh, and I forgot to mention the petroleum jelly that was smeared on the wall. Yeah - nice. Needless to say but all jelly, lotion, powder, oil - anything of this nature, that would require more than two minutes to clean up if spilled or smeared, has now been removed from the kids room. And we don't close doors anymore. Lesson learned.