Sometimes "Getting Into Things" is Good. Sometimes it is Awful.

The boys almost always wake before I do.  They are dependable to watch tv or play until I get up.  If they get into something, I hear them.  A few memorable times I have not heard them.

Today was a good thing.  They found some polymer clay in my artish room and have spent hours making dogs, dragons, and dinosaurs.  Their creations just came out of the oven and they are really cute.  Great activity and I would not have thought of it for them because they are so busy.  It is hard to get them to color or draw for very long.

When they were about 3 and a half it wasn't so good.  In those days, I did not sleep in.  I had to be up with them.  They never called me to get up.  As soon as they could crawl over the rails, they were up and about.   

Anyway, I woke up to eerie silence, yet knew they were up.  Maybe I knew I had overslept.  As I rushed through the house, I met two small white shiny toddlers.  Only shiny black eyes were not white.  We were  having the house painted inside and they had opened and emptied 5-10 gallons of white paint in the entry hall.  They'd been sliding across the tile on it.  Then apparently they went through the house touching furniture and walls wherever they went.  I was in shock.  I was really in shock.  I grabbed them and dumped them in the bathtub, screamed for Greg, ran around saying "Oh no", and then wandered outside unsure how to care for them and clean up the mess. 

Thankfully I met some neighbors in the street and they came to the rescue.  They took the boys outside and hosed them down and kept them while we cleaned up.

The short story is I called the painters and with them we cleaned up the floor and furniture and removed the dining room carpet.  To this day I have furniture with white spots or sloshes on it.  (You may have seen the clip that went around a few years ago about the little boys with paint in the living room and on their tv - it was much worse than that!)

When we decided to have children, one of the goals I set was to help/allow them to experiment, to be adventurers, artists, scientists.  Either we succeeded or they are naturally that way.  I'm glad, but believe you me, it has its drawbacks!

I wish I had pictures of that day, but I truly was in shock.  Not one record remains (except some paint).