Mommy vs. Blue

Many of you have heard this sad tale of blue, but I share it here again to include the pictorial evidence.

Perhaps you noticed in the last post that sweet Silas was posing for me while standing in his crib:

(Isn’t he sweet?)

But it must be made clear that Silas has not just awoken from a lovely slumber. He is in there because . . .

Despite icky weather and feeling somewhat sick that weekend, I thought perhaps we would check out the new farmer’s market in town. I mentioned this to Silas, who of course got all excited about going somewhere in the truck. I was a bit tired, so I sat down (a poorly thought out plan for a mother of a toddler, to begin with), and told him to go get socks. I sat there feeling sick for a while and staring into space, and forgot all about the socks.

Silas was in his room much longer than he needed to get his socks (but remember I had forgotten about them anyway) when he came out looking down at his hands.

Which were blue.

In a split second the thoughts connected: Silas went to get socks, which are in the drawer right above the drawer with the PAINT in it!

I found this:

Blue.

The above picture was taken AFTER I had scooped many spoonfuls of the puddled paint back into the bottle. The little blue smudges around are from Silas’s foot, and they extend all the way into my living room.

After cleaning up Silas as best one can while paint is oozing into the carpet, I tried wiping up the paint. It didn’t take long to realize that paper towel was not going to cut it, so we went and borrowed Mr. Poh’s carpet cleaner. (Thanks, Mr. Poh!)

You can see the carpet cleaner in the bottom of the picture. This is about half-way through the cleaning process.

It took a LONG TIME. Which is why Silas ended up in the crib. From there he could safely watch mommy use the neat machine, yet not track about any more blue paint.

I can’t remember how long I worked on the carpet, but I eventually ended up with this:

The spot is still very blue, but when compared to how it started, it actually came a lot cleaner than I ever thought possible.

Silas did not get in trouble for any of this (other than the confinement to the crib while I cleaned), for I was indeed the one who sent him to get socks, the one who taught him how to unscrew caps, and the one who left tempera paint in a toddler accessible place.

There are heaps of lessons to be learned here, not the least of which is:  Never believe for an instant that “washable” actually means washable.

One of Silas’s toenails is actually still a little blue.