"Yook (Look)!" Annabelle yelled from the dining room / office / classroom. "Yook what I did!" Jacob ran over to see what she was yelling about. "Oh my goodness!" he yelled back at me. "Annabelle wrote ALL over herself!" Annabelle spun around in the office chair to show me her new and improved red legs. She had a red marker in one hand, the marker cap in the other, her legs covered in red marks. She flashed me the biggest smile and giggled a little as she said, sweetly, " Yook what I did!" I took the marker from her and went back to the kitchen to prepare lunch. I wasn't too concerned. It was a dry erase marker. I once successfully removed sharpie drawings from her skin. Wiping off dry erase markings would be a piece of cake.
As I made sandwiches, Jacob alerted me to another potential problem. "MOMMY, look what she has now!!!" Annabelle was back in the office chair, this time holding a spray bottle of dry erase board cleaner. I grabbed it from her hands, not knowing she had unscrewed the top. It spilled all over the chair and all over her pull-up. "Oh no. I need new pants," she said. She ran to her room to get a new Dora pull-up while I tried to clean up the chair. Who knew dry erase board cleaner would leave such a stain? Not to mention, it smells awful. The label states, "Use in a well ventilated area." I can see and smell why.
Lunch was uneventful. Jacob and Annabelle both ate all their food, albeit VERY slowly. I sprayed another layer of Resolve on the office chair, attempting to, again, remove the stain and the smell. After lunch, we read a story. Today, they chose Bedtime for Frances. Then, it was time for naps -- such a glorious time of the day. Ever since lunch, Jacob had been asking me if he could go outside and get the mail. I told him he could...later. He didn't like that answer. I finally gave in and let him walk to the mailbox before his rest time. I stood at the front door and watched him. He stopped, looked both ways for cars, then turned around and gave me a thumbs up. He opened the mailbox, took out one catalog and ran back to the door. "Mommy, there is A LOT of mail today!" he exlaimed. "Well, bring it inside...all of it," I said. "Not just one catalog." He brought the mail in piece by piece, one at a time. He went back to the mailbox to grab one last envelope, but instead of bringing it home, he took off towards the neighbor's house. Just as I was about to run after him, Annabelle came walking up behind me...pantsless. "I go potty," she said. She had just come from the bathroom. I told her to go get a new pull-up from the drawer. She ran to her room and I ran outside to get Jacob.
Jacob had seen his friend out in the yard and ran over to say hello. Annabelle came walking outside with no pants. I quickly put on her pull-up and we walked over to the neighbor's house as well. (And by the way, I still hadn't wiped the red marker from Annabelle's legs.) They were in the middle of a crisis. "What's going on?" I asked. My neighbor was holding her dog down, trying to get her to swallow something from a syringe. "We have to make our dog throw up," she said.
While they were at the grocery store, their dog was at home having a delicious, yet dangerous snack. She ate several packets of hot chocolate -- paper, chocolate...everything. Everyone knows chocolate can be lethal to a dog, so my neighbor needed to give her pet something to make her throw up. I held the dog down for her, while she pried its mouth open. Meanwhile, the kids ran around the front yard talking about throw up.
Finally, the dog threw up...several times. Whew. The kids talked about throw up even more. I said to my neighbor, "You know, this is something our kids are going to remember and talk about forever."
I gathered my two kids and walked back inside. I looked at Annabelle and burst into laughter. She was in the front yard wearing a Carolina Panthers t-shirt and a pull-up. She didn't have on any shoes and her legs had red ink all over them. I suddenly realized I had become one of those parents -- the parent I said I'd never be. "I will never let my kids run around outside half-dressed, looking like little ragamuffins," I used to say. Well, I realize now...life happens. I didn't intend for my two year old to be playing outside in the front yard looking that way. It just...happened. Parenthood is definitely a learning experience and I am loving every minute of it.
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