Earlier this afternoon I was busy writing an email when Anna came running in and said I should have a look. I went and almost fainted as soon as we entered the oldest mite’s room.
The little git used three permanent marker pens (which he found in his father’s upstairs office) to “decorate” some panes of the wooden floor, two walls, a wardrobe door, bed legs, a seat cushion, and the youngest mite.
That’s right – our mite was covered in gibberish scribbles and circles in three different colours (red, green and blue if you must know). His face, arms, head and chest. This panicked me a bit but calmed down as soon as I read the permanent marker label to make sure it wasn’t toxic (it isn’t, thank god). He loved it, though. And wailed in protest when we tried to wash it off him with various solutions (Johnson’s baby oil seems to work best). I can see some faint traces on his face, especially cheeks, but they will come off easily enough. Throughout this, the oldest mite watched us quietly, couching with his paws on his knees, as if he was some kind of a sociologist.
I hugged him loads of times throughout because I felt guilty about making him jump in surprise when I screamed without thinking, “Holy fuck! What the fuck did you do? Oh, my! Ha ha! Oh, fuck.” (I rarely if ever swore in front of kids, but when shocked or surprised, it pours out of my mouth. Need to sort this out.)
I spent the rest of the day and evening on my knees, removing the marker traces. Both mites snored in youngest mite’s room. I hope the oldest mite won’t be too disappointed to see all his handiwork gone when he sees his room later this morning. Anyroad, I’ve finished it just now. If I worked out correctly, it took me roughly eleven hours to remove it all. Eleven. Hours. On. My. Knees. I think at this rate I’m qualified to be a nun. A seat cushion is a lost cause, though, but I simply flipped it over so no one can see the traces. Heh. I plan to buy a box with a super-strong padlock for W’s office to lock all pens in.
I should lock Will’s office door, but the TV is there and comparing with other rooms, Will’s office is probably the nicest and safest (it has a settee with three massive windows, making the room spacious, bright and sunny). Hm, this requires some thinking and re-structuring. I’ll probably swap Will’s office with the living room. Or turn a guest room into Will’s office? Yeah, that could work. If Will’s office becomes a TV room, it could have a sofa seat that can be converted into a bed when a guest stays here overnight.
Either way, how my body aches! I never had my shoulders and back ache so much, not even after a mad workout. I have a feeling this is not going to be the last time, especially after seeing a gleam in the youngest mite’s left eye now that he’s realised a pen doesn’t have to be restricted to the boundaries of paper any more. Oh, yeah, I’m locking up all my lipsticks, pens, etc.
Right. It’s around two a.m. and haven’t done any work today, so I’m off to bed and die a little. Hopefully I’ll catch up tomorrow.
I’d say Oldest Mite was proud of his handiwork! We had an incident involving markers, but the washable variety. Unfortunately, the walls have a sort of gravel finish (I’m no interior designer – no idea what that’s called). At any rate, we now need to paint because my attempts to remove the marker from the wall resulted in my removing part of the gravel finish instead. Grr!
The washable variety! WHY DIDN’T WE HAVE THAT? Stupid us!
lol! Oh, no. You have my deepest sympathies. It must be a rite of passage for toddlers to use markers on walls, I’m thinking.