A Day From Where?

As I promised a fellow blogger, this is the story of my "Day From H---"

I have twin girls that are almost ten now and things with them as toddlers were always pretty busy. But, there is one day that will ALWAYS stand out in my mind as my worst day. These girls never did any thing on their own. When they were tiny babies I remember driving in our car feeling the need to nurse them and realizing that they were about to wake up. Then, like clock work, both of them started SCREAMING their sweet little heads off.

On this particular day, every thing started out normal. They got up, ate breakfast, played, had lunch, and then went down for their normal nap time. They usually slept from 1 to 3 pm so I did what ever it was I was doing until 3 rolled around. When I opened the door to their room I could smell it! POOP! Both of my darling 18 month olds had decided it would be a great idea to finger paint with POOP! It was on them, my wall, the cribs...EVERY WHERE! Well, instead of getting angry (I didn't spank back then!) I stripped both girls right there and put them in the tub.
When they were clean, dry, and dressed I put them in front of a movie (I LOVED the magic babysitter box back then too!) and set to cleaning the mess.

As I was finishing up a different smell caught my attention. "What could it be?" I wondered, and then, I walked into the living room!!! My amazing husband had left not only a permanent marker out but the super glue as well! Ahhhhh! After a rush of panic and the discovery that neither of them had eaten any of the glue, I shewed them away. Well I got out my Shout Gel (the ONLY thing that I have found that can remove permanent marker out of a couch) and began scrubbing away at the black scribbles all over my living room. (the carpet, walls, couch, entertainment center, TV, and so on...) I was also picking the super glue off the wall, as well.

Then I heard a noise. Now most of you mothers, I'm sure, know the noises in your house. You can tell the sound of some one playing in the sink, or jumping on the bed. Most noises around my house are recognizable to me. Even when my husband says "What was that?" I can reply with "Malachi must have jumped from the top bunk again." But this noise was different.

It went something like "Splat, Slosh, Slosh...Splat, Slosh, Slosh". Dropping what I was doing, I ran to the girls' bathroom. They had pulled out ALL of my towels, put them in the toilet and then thrown them on the floor! They had FLOODED my bathroom. There they were standing in water that was two inches deep, smiling up at me, so proud! Needless to say, I was in tears at this point! What on earth would cause a child to think of something like that?

It was then that I picked those two criminal minds up and threw them on the couch. (In a very loving, maternal way!) I was so upset at that point that I have no idea what it was that I said to (or screamed at) them but it was something like "Sit there! DON'T YOU MOVE!" While my babies sat on the couch whaling I went into the bathroom to clean up...which was a little hard to do considering the fact that they had used all of the clean towels to make the mess. I think I ended up using a couple of blankets!

I'm not sure if you noticed but, if you recall, I left what I was doing to find out what the sound was. Yup! What could be more tempting than a brand new bottle of Shout Gel? My girls certainly couldn't think of anything! I'm not gonna drag this one out. They covered...COVERED my wall with shout!

Did I learn my lesson? NOPE! In a horrid rant...YELLING and SCREAMING, I flew into a wiping-up-the-mess-furry...I think I was using the blankets that I had just cleaned up toilet water with. All the time I'm facing the wall (still yelling) and cleaning (I eventually ended up leaving it for my husband to do) I hadn't even noticed that the girls had left the room!

Okay, I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, but come on! Would it have taken a genius to figure out that they were going to get into more trouble. Then I heard it...CRASH! The girls had climbed up into my pantry and pushed every can off of my second shelf! How they didn't end up with a broken toe/finger/hand/foot, Ill never know!

Looking into those to angelic faces I began to laugh...and then cry...and then laugh again. I picked up my two precious little angels and locked them in their cribs! :D There they stayed until Daddy came home! I decided that poop wasn't so bad. It's hard to believe that all of that happen in just over two hours, but it did. John came home and messes got cleaned. The girls got hugged and played with...and we all survived!

Nothing could have prepared me for that day...Nothing! But that day prepared me for the next 10 years of parenting. I will never be caught off guard by a toddler again. Sure I've had some surprises along the way but I have never lost controll or had a melt down like that day. I think that's why the Lord gave me my girls first... to prepare me for all of the other children!