A Fun Mess

It was a lot of fun having Micah and Caleb's best friends here for a few days. It was a hard few days for me because we had not one, not two, but THREE plumbing problems while they were here! The AC unit started leaking and my bathroom had a small flood. Then the pipes under the bathroom sink broke apart and exploded. And lastly, my washing machine started leaking. All of these things were in our one and only bathroom. So from the beginning this was a big problem. Because we have one newly-potty trained child (Annabel) and a half-way-trained child (Caleb). So the absence of an available bathroom caused problems. And accidents! The last of which, and biggest, happened right before the girls' grandma came to pick them up. So she walked into our apartment and found them like this...

So here's what happened: Since we only have 2 bedrooms the kids couldn't have their own rooms to sleep in which means they got verrrry little sleep for 2.5 days. So Terry and I learned pretty quickly that we were going to have to be strict about naptime and bedtime. Which is why, I think, Hazel didn't come tell us right away when Annabel had a poop accident. Hazel was trying to obey our rule of staying in bed.

So Annabel, at some point during naptime, poops in her panties, and tries to rectify the situation herself. She takes them off (mess!), sits down on the rug (mess!), steps in the mess on her way to the closet (footprints of mess!), pees in the closet, and then tries to put on one of Caleb's pull-ups (mess!) While I admire her determination to fix the problem, you can imagine the little trails of mess she left in her path as she worked to clean herself up. So when Hazel calls me and says Annabel pooped on the floor, I'm not at all prepared for what the little stinker dirtied up with her well-intentioned actions!

And the first thing I do is strip both girls so they don't get any dirtier (which is why their nearly naked in the photos). Then I quickly wipe off the toys that got dirty. And that's when it occurs to me that I can clean up the mess AND keep the kids entertained outside of the bedroom at the same time. 

 I give them each a sponge and a bowl of soapy water and they went to town soaping up any toy I gave them. At first it was only the few toys that got dirty, but they were fast cleaners, so soon they were soaping up a whole kitchen full of toys! The picture above is Annabel's "uh-oh" face regarding her accident!

 

You can't tell really well in the photos, but the floor was covered with suds! 

And this is Annabel's face after I asked her if she was eating the soap. Yes, she was, by the way. She's quite the tenacious little girl!

 The girls poor Mimi shows up in the middle of this chaos. And while, if it were Emily who'd come to get them, I would have been able to laugh, since it was Mimi, I was a little embarrassed at the situation. Like I was forcing child labor on the kids or something! The bubbly (in more ways than one) girls left in the middle of cleaning time. But my little cleaner, Micah, continued cleaning and then drying his toys for at least 30 more minutes!

And Caleb, somehow, slept through all of this. So he missed out on the fun. But he, unlike his brothers and his friends, has no interest in cleaning, so I doubt he would have lasted 2 minutes during the sponge-fest!

It's moments like this when I have so much awe and respect for pre-school and early elementary teachers! 'Cause I love all four of these kiddoes like my own. It must be so hard to clean up messes of your students! So, way to go Kelly, Lindsey, Olivia, Carrie... did I forget any friends who teach little ones? Thanks for all you do to love on other people's kids!!