Ingredients:
1 3-color grease paint wheel, left over from that one Halloween when you decided you really needed authentic-looking bruises
1/4 oz Spirit gum
1/2 tube skin-tone (medium) silicon elastic appliance blend (swollen eye lid kit)
4 makeup brushes (varying sizes)
Directions:
Take a nap. While sleeping, have your three-year old son awaken from his nap before you, find his way into your utility closet, and open the red plastic costume makeup kit you bought several years ago to store your various tubes, sponges, and fake “scarecrow” teeth. On a clean stretch of white berber carpet, have him spread the 3-color grease paint wheel and spirit gum. With brushes / fingertips / souls of little tiny Elmo sneakers, allow him to mix the ingredients together in an “organic” pattern, grounding them into the carpet, while spreading any excess on his hands, face, and pant legs. Garnish with a thick drizzle of silcon elastic appliance blend.
Yield:
One huge freaking mess—and a bemused little boy who looks surprisingly like Kenny Loggins. Serves 4.
This…is a bummer, dude.
Look at it this way, Jeff, the kid doesn’t lack for brains. He could’ve just eaten it.
BTW, was he sleeping in his sneakers or did he get them to assist when he realized his hands were getting gicky? Extra cool points right there.
Heh. My son is also three.
…so I know how you’re feeling!
Yield: One huge fucking messâ€â€and a frightened little boy who looks surprisingly like Kenny Loggins. Serves 4.
Isn’t there an enraged wife in there somewhere?
I hear club soda will get that right out.
Actually, my wife just got home and thinks he looks cute. She’s taking pictures now.
But I hear Ann Althouse is absolutely furious that I’ve allowed such ugliness to overtake the carpet in our bedroom closet.
We haven’t had pictures in awhile, you know.
Ah pictures, yes! You take pictures, you can laugh about it later.
That thought can save your sanity in the present.
That sucks. I’ve had the best luck with the Oreck carpet and floor cleaning products. During the first two years we were married, my wife bought a new vacuum cleaner at least once every three months. Finally bought an Oreck XL and have been using that for the last nine years. We’ve now got a mini-retail outlet of Oreck products in the cleaning supply closet. Between the dogs and the kids, it has all seen heavy usage. It may not feel like you’re particularly lucky right now, but be glad its Berber rather than a standard shag. Good luck!
Now a pic of that, yes indeed!
TW: appeared44, afterward for sure
I was about to say, you are entitled to break to the suggested California Law as a way of making a point, just one hard slap on the ass, until I read this
You’re kidding.
Phew, no problem then, you can just close the door!
Or is just knowing how much the Berber is suffering in there just too much to bear?
Paging Sullivan!
To impress Ann A, take a photo of it and call it art, Jeff.
Here’s a fun link to a self-portrait Ann A did a while back, she solicited titles for it, mine was “Truffula Trees.”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/althouse/355203293/
I think Ann Althouse is hot.
She has like 50 photos of the Super Bowl, taken off a TV. How lame is that?
She also has about half a dozen pics of Prince stroking his guitar behind a screen.
Effing hot.
White carpet….yep, he has no idea how close he was to the danger zone…white carpet and kids…what were you thinking??? I just recarpeted last year and went with various shades of brown just to hide dirt…and make the better half think thats a large hole in my undies until she picks them up.
Jeff,
Consider yourself christened. Serves you right for taking a nap! A house husband should be doing more than popping bon bons, watching Oprah and napping. Sheesh! (Don’t forget the utter waste of time that is blogging–or so I’m told by the hubby.)
My 22 month old got on his Winnie-the-Pooh scooter (kinda looks like this) and decided to ride it down the stairs. Get down faster that way. Thank the parenting gods, my husband and I were both home in other rooms so no one could get blamed for being shitty parents. We got to share the guilt!
Forget Oprah, I just looked further down. Make that The View. Don’t you think it’s time, Jeff, that a man be added to that show? Some diversity, maybe?
I told you to get astroturf.
-Dipping kids fingers in purple dye already lose its meaning?
Four hours in timeout, I’m guessing.
I was bedridden with a stomach infection last weekend, and was awakened from my quasi-unconsciousness by my wife screaming at the kids. The next day, I found out. While she was on the phone forever, their patience ran out and they got into the Elmers and glitter. Table, floor, carpet, everywhere. Stuff doesn’t vacuum up, either. Mine are still young and cute, but not cute enough to get away with that, anymore…
I’m impressed. I was sure you’d say something about pregnant chads and THE CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM IF WE DON’T COUNT!!! EVERY!!! VOTE!!!!!
So, you’ve actually made it into the same century as the rest of us. I’m proud of you.
White carpets eh? Figures. Just don’t want the colored ones to represent I guess.
Fortunately your son seems to be trying to help you with your clearly RACISCT choices.
Fight the power little Goldstein, fight the power!
It never failed that it was when I was indisposed behind a closed bathroom door some awful crashing would come from somewhere else in the house…
small pause of silence, then “Don’t worry, mommy, we’ll clean it up.”
The only thing that got me out of the bathroom faster was hearing the softly uttered <i>”uh oh, mom’s gonna kill us.”
Do you have Stanley Steemer in your area? If they can’t rescue the berber, no one can.
3 year old and a WHITE carpet?
What were you thinking?
dear oh dear oh dear
Crikey, it’s been 3 years already?
Just to let you know, soon even daddy using the restroom will be ample time to discover the artiste within.
When my second son was three, he decorated the carpet, walls, and furniture with mustard. It was the squirt bottle type.
I think the bill came to 250 dollars all together.
As I walked out of the restroom and saw the carnage I was so incredibly bewildered that I actually laughed out loud. I almost thought for a few moments that I might actually have went insane. The confused emotion of outright joy and frustration at the same time were almost too much to comprehend.
And it doesn’t stop there. Just a few weeks ago, or were it years, the boy looked up at me and stated matter of factly, “Daddy you know I can’t stand you looking at me with those damned mean eyebrows.”
You try not to laugh and its pointless. Children are always there to remind you that your power over nature is futile at best.
Are you sure the kid wasn’t just making a comment on Orientalism?
RoA
When #2 daughter was about 7, she was sent to her room for a time out. Somewhere, somehow she made it to her room with a navy blue PERMANENT marker
and proceeded to scribble a six-inch wide band around the full perimeter of her room (which I had wallpapered all by myself only a few months before)
Yes she lived. But my mom’s curse worked years later.
She has indentidal twin sons (4 1/2) just like her
eek… “identical”
Another thing that small children seem to have a talent for is finding that little knick knack that is terribly important to you for some reason and then destroying it.
For instance, a autographed photo of Lou Brock from 1976 that your deceased father waited in line for a whole day for just so he could give it to you.
You might hide it a a drawer in your office and there might be a permanent marker an entire house away but somehow the two shall merge!
Or that ceramic snoopy your deceased grandmother made you when you were a small child. You hide it WAY on top of a bookshelve. A bookshelve that no 3 year old could ever reach – unless they stack boxes on a chair and then climb the bookshelve just so they can grab the snoopy and smash it to bits on the floor.
Or how about your little league baseball trophies (the real kind – because back then you actually got them for winning first place). All of the little plastic golden batter on the top MUST come off.
Shall I go on?
No pictures?
In the closet you say? Who needs matching carpet in the closet? I’d say tear the stuff up, have it stretched on a frame and presto! Instant wall hanging, the artiste can sign it later in life.
Kid don’t know just how close he came to being shipped off to Washington state…
Closet racist, too. Sad.
Berber? Personally I have Kuchi rugs – camel wool – myself…
This is where you find out that all those people who told you berber carpets were great and easy to clean were full of shit.
I have four boys, 12, 8, 5 and 2 a dog and a cat. Been through thousands of dollars of carpet, professional carpet cleaners, super-strong British vacuums (about as good as their cars), Oxy Clean, plastic runners for high traffic areas, and Rug Dr. rentals. Finally gave up and installed the hardest hardwood I could get. But now I don’t have time to finish it. So we are walking on packing crates until the kids go out of town for Spring break and I can sand and coat this stuff.
In the meantime, we’ve all been riding the Plasma Cars the kids got for Christmas. Loads of fun, I can beat everyone in the house in a four lap race provided no one opens the fridge door at the wrong time.
Good idea taking pictures, that helped me get a reduced sentence.
Anyway, anyone want to buy about 1000 board feet of Brazilizn Walnut (Ipe)?
TW: taking order32 s
Before making any rash decisions about cleanup, sit back and ask yourself “Does this tie the room together?”
If so, well, take up bowling. Your life will never be the same again.
Uh. Given the history of this blog with a certain individual of the female, unstable persuasion, posting pictures is not in Jeff’s (or his family’s) best interest. He’s not gonna do it, so don’t bother asking.
I blame this on the kid’s membership in the dread Cult of Elmo.
Damn, forgot about that. Another reason not to feel even a twinge of sympathy for that lunatic, no more pix of Baby Goldstein.
LOL, that is kind of funny though… would have been great to get photo of it!