RED: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

This past week has definitely been full of eye-openers.

The Good:  We got a van!  It's a red Honda Odyssey and we're pretty thrilled about it.  After doing TONS of researching and craigslist/car dealership stalking for a good while, our patience paid off and we got a pretty killer deal on this little gem.  So we are on the road to being ready to have #3 now.  The best part of the van?  While driving, the kiddos get to see something besides trees and power lines for the first time in their entire lives.  The seats are too low in the Camry and the windows too high.  They have literally never been able to see anything outside before.  When we drove them around in the van they were pretty thrilled.  And I'm pretty thrilled to have a method of transportation during the day.  

The Bad:  Remember the marker incident not too long ago?  Which FYI the kiddos did indeed get on some clothes, too.  Ben and I were tired of the kids drawing on our walls (pretty much every room in our house has been graffitied), and so when the marker incident happened (which was by far the worst of them all), we said enough was enough.  We took away all desserts, blankies, and picnics for a week.  And they got spanked for the 2nd time in their lives.  We thought we were really laying down the law.  I even made sure that they knew that their artwork isn't ever pretty when it's not on paper.  That was like a knife in Lily's sweet little heart.  So over that weekend, the kids kept mentioning how drawing on the walls was a bad thing to do.  I was just starting to get a little pleased with how well things were working when I caught Skyler with a bottle of pink (which is sort of red) nail polish, painting the wall and carpet in the toy room.  I wanted to die.  And I thought to myself, "It can't get any worse."

HAHAHAHA!  Haha.  ha. ha. ha..... *ahem*  Yeaaaahhh... I was wrong.

The Ugly: I showered.  Because I prefer smelling smellable.  I came downstairs and there they were: 5 bottles of red acrylic paint emptied onto the carpet in the toy room.   Skyler had pulled a kitchen chair up to the counter and broke into my personal art stash.  Ben then told me over the phone that I'm never allowed to shower again.  Don't worry, I have.  Now, I'm not much of a cryer (not anymore, anyway) and I'm lucky if I cry once every other month, but after the marker, the nail polish, and the paint that is never going to get out of my carpet (I have heard PLENTY of carpet remedies people, but let's be realistic. 5 bottles of paint seeping down to the roots of the carpet is an unfixable problem), I cried.  Really, really hard.  So hard that my mom and sister, Becca, (who heard me sobbing over the phone) were wondering if #3 had died, so when I said, "Skyler *sob, sob, sob* got *sob, sob, sob* paint all over *sob, sob, sob* the carpet!!!!!" *sob, gasp, sob, gasp* I realized that there are worse things in life.  But this was pretty ugly, too.  We're planning on getting one of those play road rugs to cover up the scene. 

Part of the damage:

Being a parent has helped me to see a whole new side of life.  Maybe now I understand what my mom felt when 5ish year-old me got into her entire Merle Norman makeup stash and played "water color" in the sink, bathtub, and toilet. 

Sometimes I think that my kids are going to scar me for life.  But then I remind myself that scar tissue is the strongest, so get over it. 

May your week be less colorful than ours was.