Fascinating Messes I Have Cleaned

When I was three, I came running into the living room all bright-eyed with the excitement that only having my mother’s complete attention can bring, and invited her in the most delighted manner, “Come see the fascinating mess I made!”

Poor Mom. I had poured all the spices out onto the kitchen floor and had drawn pictures in what was probably $100 worth of seasonings.

Mom, I’m really sorry.

And it is with a certain exasperated resignation that I now inform you that you have since been granted your wish that I “get the children I deserve.”

Here, in no particular, I present five fascinating messes that my own children have gifted me since I became a parent, lo, these nearly ten years ago.

1) Milk Shoes

We had a shoe rack near the front door at our old house. One afternoon I discovered my 18-month-old squeezing milk from his sippy cup carefully and neatly into each shoe. By the time I arrived on the scene, he had soaked the insoles of more than eight pairs.

2) Maple Syrup

I was busy cleaning up after breakfast (mainly washing up the baby), not really paying attention to what the two-year-old was doing. He was sitting in his chair singing a little song to himself. After a few minutes, my tired brain finally processed the words: “All over the floor! All over the floor!” Wait, what?? Yeah. It was maple syrup. All over the floor.

3) Styrofoam

We bought several pieces of IKEA furniture, packed in styrofoam. The boys (then 18 months and 4) took tinker toys and punctured it into pieces of all sizes. It covered the entire ground floor of the house and stuck to the kids, who were completely covered in it thanks to static electricity. Although neither sticky nor gross, it turns out that the fascinating styrofoam mess was actually the hardest to clean. It took more than a week to rid it from the house, our clothes, the laundry system, etc.

4) Flooded Bathroom

I put my three-year-old in timeout. Due to the odd construction of the house, he essentially had a suite - a small hallway, a bathroom, and his own room. I came back five minutes later to find that he had put the plug in the sink, turned the faucet on full-blast, and flooded the bathroom. The house slanted oddly, so all the water had collected on one side of the room and was already two inches deep by the time I turned the water off. $2,000 worth of damage in 5 minutes. Well played, toddler, well played.

5) Exploding Banana Bread

It was Curse of the Leftover Brown Spotted Bananas Day, so my three-year-old and I were making banana bread. I am extremely lazy, so I use the food processor method (because then you only have to wash the food processor and not a bunch of mixing bowls). The three-year-old dropped a fork into the food processor while it was running. There was a horrible screeching, crunching noise as banana bread batter exploded all over the kitchen - covering the fridge, dishwasher, stove, floor, countertops, and us. It also somehow got inside the actual circuitry of the main overhanging light, blowing up the light bulb and shorting out the fixture completely. We still haven’t replaced it.

All of this is just to say that, at Princess Awesome, we understand that life with kids is chaotic. Their clothes need to be sturdy, wash well, and easy to take on and off. Because banana bread batter explosions happen.