Lucky To Be Alive

Perhaps this is a bit exaggerated, but it's possibly what my son's been telling himself for the past 24 hours. He has been into things...

**Please note we in no way inflict physical harm on our children, but we are a bit dramatic...hence the title of this post.**

Yesterday started out as any normal non-school day. We laid in bed and watched cartoons, then ate blueberry pancakes, and played in our jammies until Heidi Sage's 11a nap time. Things were going well.

Whenever I put Heidi Sage down for a nap, I put Clinton in front of the TV to make sure he stays in place. Since Nick Jr. puts him in a complete and utter trance, this works well for us.

Taking advantage my son's zombie-like love affair with his "tartoons", I decided I'd slip into the shower real quick and get myself dressed and ready for the remainder of the day. Here's where things started becoming unfortunate.

Clinton can hear the shower turn on from the playroom. He knows that if he is really quiet, he can sneak into my bathroom and sneak out without being seen or heard. He also knows there are things in the bathroom he'd like to get into but is unable to do so when an adult is monitoring his activities. So, occasionally he is able to tear himself from the tartoons just long enough to get into trouble....BIG TROUBLE.

When I got out of the shower, Clinton was nowhere to be seen. At that point I congratulated myself on a successful shower with no visible signs of a mess. Phew.

As I was getting ready, my neighbor called and I talked to her while I put my makeup on. While we were talking Clinton came around the corner saying, "MOM! Taptick! Taptick!" This is code for chapstick....only he didn't have chapstick....he had lipstick. Pink lipstick. Pink lipstick all over his hands. Pink lipstick all over his face. I would say everything from his cheekbones down to his chin was covered in pink. Clinton was all smiles. He could not have been prouder.

I kept my neighbor on the phone as I went searching for the rest of the mess that was inevitable...he had been upstairs, after all. In the play room I found two small spots and one larger spot of lipstick in the carpet. But relatively speaking (in comparison to some of our other messes), this seemed quite contained and minimal. My neighbor googled some solutions for getting lipstick out of carpet. I felt the problem was manageable and punished Clinton with what I felt fit the crime.

Later that afternoon, I was sitting at the kitchen table clipping coupons. Clinton was sitting across from me coloring with his markers. I was visiting with him, but not watching him. I guess he noticed I wasn't paying close enough attention and proceeded with his next mess.

"Mommy! Mommy! Look! Look, Mommy! I can't see! I can't see! Look, Mommy!"

I looked up and Clinton had a marker in each hand and had his eyes closed because he was coloring his eyelids and the surrounding areas.

"Clinton, no! That's it...we're putting the markers away!" (He had already been warned for coloring on the table.) "You need to go in the bathroom and look in the mirror. Take these wipes and go wipe your face off."

He happily ran off to the office bathroom. We keep the bathroom doors closed for Heidi Sage and usually keep them locked for Clinton. However, this door was only shut and Clinton quickly slipped in making sure to shut the door behind him. A few seconds later he slipped back out, once again making sure to shut the door behind him. He returned to me still covered in markers and without his wipes.

"Clinton your face is still dirty. Let's go get your wipes and wipe your face off." He leaped across the floor like a leopard darting in front of me to prohibit my entrance into the bathroom. Being 3 times his side, I was able to push through the human barricade.

As I opened the door my mind could not even wrap itself around what I was seeing. It took a good 20 seconds of jaw-dropped gawking before things started registering...

...I was seeing lipstick. Pink lipstick. Pink lipstick all over the counter. Pink lipstick covering the hand towel that had found its way into the sink. Pink lipstick hand prints all over the walls. Pink lipstick smeared all over the 3 doors in the bathroom, but only up to about 4 feet high. Pink lipstick caked on the door handles. And a lid to the pink lipstick I had retrieved from my little delinquent earlier in the day. So much for a contained, minimal mess...this was more Clinton's style.

Feeling that maybe my son was acting out as a cry for more attention, I decided not to lose my cool. Instead, I explained why this was wrong. I explained what his punishment would be. And I explained how he was going to help me clean it up.

He LOVED cleaning it up. I think he kept smiling at me because he thought he had really gotten away with something. When I did actually put him in his room for his punishment, he got really upset...but only until he found his rocking horse and started playing on that.

I would love to say that was the end of the troubles...but this morning didn't get off to a very good start either.

I gave Clinton a bowl of dry cereal and told him to go to the table to eat it. I went to get Heidi Sage out of her crib and came back a few minutes later to find Clinton missing. I could hear him in my room and upon entering could feel the cereal under my feet. That's when I noticed the cereal had been poured over my entire room. After taking inventory, I saw him sitting in the corner hunching down, smiling up at me. And then I had to ask the question I've had to ask umpteen times over the past few weeks...

"Clinton!! Where are your pants? Where is your underwear?"

Fast forward 30 seconds, I blew up a bit...

Clinton was quite anxious to get to school after that....and was feeling....lucky to be alive.

Earning my gray hairs honestly,

*I wrote this post last night, but already this morning Clinton has painted the laundry room walls with finger paint!!!!! I'm trying to make cupcakes for his party tonight, guess I should be paying more attention to him instead.

**The pictures of the crime scene that I had taken didn't transfer onto my computer and I deleted them before I realized it...so there are none. You'll just have to take my word for it...it was bad.**