Monday, June 8, 2009

What she says.....lesson learned

One morning this past week, I was getting dressed and as usual the tikes were in the playroom. I heard talking and squealing and "vroom, vroom'ing." Then all of a sudden I heard complete silence, which was completely unusual. It took a few minutes to figure out that all I heard was silence and then put two and two together.....silence meant trouble.

I walked to the playroom and peaked my head in and low and behold there was green paint everywhere. The floors, the tikes, the toys, the dresser, the bookcases. And in the middle, there they sat.....studiously painting everything with paint brushes and utter concentration on their faces......in complete silence.

"Uh-hm"

Two very big brown eyes and two happy blue eyes, stared up at me with a look of terror and joy, respectively. I didn't say a word.

"I'm sorry Momma"

"Do we paint without permission?"

"No"

"Then why are you and Noah painting right now?"

"I dunno"

"Who got the paint"

silence and the lip came out

"Mama mama mamamama"

"Did Noah get the paint out of the top draw"

A fearful head nod no. I picked up the paint and paint brushes leaving the room and tried not to lose my cool. As I walked out, Meredith was apologizing and Noah started screaming, he was not happy that his art lesson was over. I tried not to let the daily grind get to me. On top of getting ready and having to get two tikes ready to head out the door, now I had to clean up a gigantic mess in the toy room. You would be surprised what two tiny tikes could cover in five minutes with a large container of forest green paint. But just as the steam started to come through my ears and the frustrated growls were about to creep out, I heard this while washing the brushes and getting wet rags.

"No-wee don't cwy, it's okay......don't cwy no-wee we will play with someting else......okay noah we can play someting else......ssshhh.......here noah, here play wit dis."


"WAAAAAAAAAAAAWAAAAAA"

"Shhh it's okay Noah, here play wit dis, play wit sitter"

And at that moment the steam evaporated and the growls turned into a smile. While I was not happy about the green mess and green tikes to clean, it really wasn't the worst thing in the world, actually not too bad at all. Not bad enough to ruin everyones day at 8am. Life is way too short for that. Instead I walked in and said it was okay and cleaned up the mess with two very eager helpers. Don't get me wrong I have moved all the paint from the top drawer in the toy room, see I learned a very valuable lesson.

2 comments:

Blair said...

Ha! I hope it was washable paint. Silence is never good.

Meredith is such a good big sister!

I so do not envy the roll of the first child. The "burden" of taking care of the siblings starts so young. I have noticed that with Charlotte and it makes me feel so bad. And it has made me appreciate my spot as the baby so much more!

Amy said...

AWWW, Meredith has such a kind heart! Truly, she understands empathy already at the tender age of 3! You and Josh are great parents!