Bad Weather Promotes Mischievous Behavior

Last weekend, we got pounded with severe thunderstorms and torrential rains. The power went out on Saturday afternoon, and we were left to entertain ourselves as they did in the "olden days." The kids couldn't really color or read because the skies were dark which left our home pretty dark, even with blinds open. They played with toys most of the time, but eventually the entertainment of toys lost their captivating hold on the sporadic attention span of my children. Jeremiah turned to his mischievous mind which rolls out ideas like you wouldn't believe. During a quiet lull in activities, my little man put into action one of his little thoughts. Once we realized that Jeremiah had been missing from the keepign room for a little too long and was a little too quite, we went on the hunt. Found him sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Covered in sweet-smelling sticky red goo. Bottom three steps were painted with said goo. Our stairs are carpeted! My little artist's medium of choice was my brand new $7.00 tube of Victoria Secret Cherry Bomb lip gloss which was now pretty much empty. I made a beeline towards the dining room closet for the carpet cleaner when it dawned on me that our power was out. Looks like easy clean up was not going to be so easy afterall. I filled a bucket with warm soapy water, grabbed an old toothbrush, and got to scrubbing like Cinderella.
Scrub, scrub, scrub. Still sticky. Still red. Scrub, scrub, scrub. Still sticky. Very hot pink. Scrub, scrub, scrub. No change. What to do, what to do??? iPhone. Safari. Google. How to remove red lip gloss from carpet? Search. Read, read, read. Toothpaste! Toothpaste? Toothpaste. Run to Cynthia and Ashlee's bathroom and borrow their tube of toothpaste. Here goes nothing. Scrub some toothpaste into the hot pink carpet and rinse. Sticky, gone. Carpet, more of a baby pink. Wow, this stuff really works, and the carpet is smelling minty fresh. Half a tube of toothpaste later, the only reason I still notice the barely there pink tint of the carpet is because I have been scrubbing at it for a half an hour. Finish clean up. Jeremiah sentenced to nap time.

Wednesday morning of this past week, Jeremiah decided to make breakfast. Without supervision. Came downstairs to find that he very carefully poured himself a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Kudos to the boy. Substituted half a bottle of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup as milk. No kudos for that.

Today, it's rainy out. And Jeremiah has already been at it again. I found him getting into Cynthia's makeup. He had mascara all over his face. Nice, real nice. Didn't have my camera or iPhone to take a pic before I scrubbed his face. What a mess-a-roo!