Three Little Goblins

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It ended up being one of the most productive days of my life. Mind you, this isn't hard to accomplish. I can make dinner and fold a load of laundry and the day would be tied for second place on my productive days list. (I despise the word 'productive' even. As well as 'effecient' and 'effective.' Why would I want to be those things? I rather value being relaxed and easy-going, and if that means sacrificing productivity, then so be it.)

The day started with me cleaning the entire upstairs. I vacuumed every floor, and wiped down every hard wood surface by hand. I did all the laundry. I traced a full-sized Elijah onto posterboard for him to color and then put up in his room. I decided to put up curtains and they were too long, so I spent hours doing a sewing project to make them just the right length and look good, too (for me this was a HUGE accomplishment. Sad, I know, but normally I would just cut them off, leave the ends ravelling, and call it good).

I babysat last minute for a friend who needed to go in for an emergency doctor's appointment (no, it's not someone you know. Yes, she's fine). So I even had an extra toddler while I got all this done. Around 4:30 p.m. I was standing downstairs, folding the last load of laundry and feeling pretty good about myself as Miciah and Elijah were upstairs coloring the Elijah poster so we could post it in his room.

Mid-self-congratulatory thought, Miciah came downstairs yelling, "Elijah colored his face and hands!" Well, that was good, I thought, since he'd been avoiding those areas on his poster. I said, "That's good!" Miciah just stared at me. She blinked. "No. I mean, Elijah ACTUALLY COLORED his face and hands. With marker!" Oh.

I thought about that for a minute. So what if he colored his face and hands? Was it hurting anyone? No. I chuckled to myself, thinking about how funny kids are, and said, "It's alright, Miciah." She was not expecting that response, and she jumped on her opportunity. "Can I do it, too?" "Sure! Just don't color on your clothes." What a relaxed, fun mother I was right then!

I kept folding laundry. About 10 minutes later Tank came downstairs, his face, hands and feet COVERED in red marker. Totally cute, and totally funny. I went upstairs to see all of them covered in their favorite colors: Tank, as I just said, was red; Miciah was blue; and Elijah was green. They were all goblins, they said. Elijah was the Green Goblin (a familiar character in our family). Tank ran around the living room saying, "I red gobwin!" and shooting me with his pretend weapon that shoots out of his hand. I got out the camera and took pictures of the 3 of them.

And then I noticed a small detail I'd previously overlooked: They colored the bottoms of their feet. I could just see, in my mind, marker all over my house, rubbed into the carpet. I imagined myself on hands and knees for hours trying to get that red out of the carpet and being wholly unsuccessful. And suddenly, the fun was over: I sent them all into the bathroom to take a bath. Miciah complained, "You said we could keep it for a while!" "Well, that was before I knew you colored the bottoms of your feet!" I went to turn the water on, and it wouldn't warm up.

Our water heater had been acting up lately, and the pilot light hadn't been staying lit. Rob had been re-lighting it a few times every day, but he hadn't shown me how to light it yet. I looked at the water heater, trying to figure out how to light it, but all I could picture was a blown-up water heater. I went back to the bathroom and did what I had to do: I ordered the children to take a cold bath. Needless to say, they weren't thrilled with that prospect. I filled up the tub with a minimal amount of water and told them they could stay standing, but they HAD to wash off the marker. I left them in the 3 inches of water and went back into the dining room to find marker footprints everywhere. A little flustered, I started Windexing.

I surveyed the livingroom as I went past, and there was no marker on the carpet, for which I said a small prayer of gratitude. Then back into the bathroom where there was marker EVERYWHERE. I must have Windexed every surface of that bathroom: the floor, the sink, the toilet seat, the glass shower door. As I was finishing the Windexing, I could hear Tank repeatedly saying, "It's cold. It's cold." And then Elijah said, "Mooomm! There's peeee in the bathtub!"

"Do I LOOK like I really care?" is what I was thinking, but I said, "Why is there pee in the tub?" "Because Tank peed in it." I almost rolled my eyes. "So don't drink the water." Having finished the Windexing, I proceeded to the tub to finish the scrub down. The kids were NOT happy about me scrubbing their faces with cold water. Tank doesn't like to get his face washed anyway, so the whole time I was scrubbing his face he was screaming bloody murder and the red marker dripping from his face made it look like he was bleeding bloody murder, too. Good times.

After it was all over I sent the kids downstairs to watch a movie until Daddy got home. I needed a little sanity time. And as they were marching downstairs, I called after them, "Oh. And you can't color with markers for a few weeks." Miciah wasn't happy: "What? Why?!" "Because I said so," I replied, and sat down to read a book.