After work today I decided to clean the house; It has been awhile since I actually got around and under everything. So I am full into cleaning while my two precious daughters are outside. Finally getting to my desk area, to clean off the dust bunnies collecting behind the monitor and around my pencil and pen holders, I glanced out the window and saw that the girls were scrubbing my very grubby jeep with toilet paper. I immediately knocked on the window, trying to remain calm as I am imagining the small rock granules grinding into the surface of my paint surely causing damage that touch up paint can't fix. The girls look up with their beautifully innocent faces and I smile. I ask them to come upstairs. Once up here I calmly thank them for their want to be so helpful and clean the jeep, but that we should probably wait until daddy gets home so that we can use the hose. I explain to them that the dirt can cause scratches (I am really thinking fissures) and we want to take good care of our vehicles so that they last a long time.
As I am talking to them, their big blue eyes staring up at me in that innocent "ok mommy" way that they do, I start to smell something. It was a cleaner of some kind . . . I couldn't quite put my hand on it and then it came to me. Like a flash of lightening out of a clear sky. Instantaneously I stop my explanation of the reasons behind using water and fluffy scrub pads when washing a car and ask ... "What were you using to wash the jeep?" Olyvia's eyes instantly got serious and her mouth curved down in a little frown. Ellie still not quite sure what the question meant. Olyvia said "Well, Ellie used just a little bit of Spray N Wash." I said, "How much?" and she assured me it was "just a little".
I said to the girls, as they looked at me worriedly afraid of how I would react, "Nooooooo, we can't use spray n wash on vehicles" as I jumped up and slid my feet into the first shoes they came into contact with while I practically fell down the stairs to see the damage. Now I am not only imagining fissures in my paint, but no paint at all. I am wondering what a car without paint would look like. Would it look like a wall does after you use too much 409 on a stain? Where the pain runs thin, and you eventually see sheetrock? Or would it be more like a face of a dancer being sprayed with a misting bottle, the mascara and makeup slowly sliding down her face as her natural skin color shows through?
I round the end of the garage, flying off the bottom stair and in front of me sits a jeep (Wait....let me first explain that when I got home from work this afternoon my jeep was covered in dust. There was not one inch of paint that was not in some way covered with a good layer of gravel dust particles). So, there sits a jeep that is no longer dusty, but COVERED with liquid. The lime green spray n wash bottle tilted, lying on its side next to the front left tire. I run to it and pick it up (brand new, having just purchased it last night at the grocery store) and it is practically empty. Yes, they have used the entire bottle of spray n wash on my dirty jeep. I turn and the girls are there at the bottom of the stairs with that deer in the headlight look . . . Ellie exclaiming, "just an accident, right mommy?"
I calmly tell them to go upstairs and wash their hands and then come back down. I needed a few minutes to swallow what I was seeing. I quickly go and grab the hose that is all the way across our front yard, a good 50 yards away, hooked up to a sprinkler. I drag it over to the jeep, turn it on and attempt to wash the spray n wash off the vehicle. Suds are everywhere as it reacts to the force of the water. I hear Ellie from her bedroom window, "just an acident, right mommy? right mommy? right mommy, an accident?" I am just in too much shock to respond until I again repeat that they need to wash their hands and come back down.
After they come back down I squat down to begin the discussion of why we don't use spray n wash on cars. Instead I make it simple "Girls, lets not play with cleaners because they are not good for us and it makes mommy worry. Oh, and we only use car n wash on cars, not spray n wash."
I then go upstairs, while they remain downstairs having gone off to play and totally forgetting about the spray n wash episode. Once upstairs I call Robb to explain to him that I need him to pick up a new bottle of spray n wash at the store when he stops there to get Olyvia's prescription. He says, "But what happened to the bottle we just bought yesterday. " I tell him it is a funny thing he should ask . . . . . . and I proceed to crack up laughing. Ahhhh, to be young again.
As a parent I am continually met with moments where I have to decide how I am going to handle the situation. Children are always showing us that the world is really pretty simple while at the same time too complex.
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