Eli's WMDs: Aftershave, red sharpies & milk

My poor house. I sometimes wonder what will be left of it when and if we ever leave here and whether I wouldn't rather just cut my losses now and move into a cardboard box that is not so vulnerable to attack. It's definitely warm enough here.

So while Eli was supposed to be sitting in timeout yesterday for dumping out aftershave all over my nice carpet, he was mischievously carrying out a far more destructive attack. What a fool I am! I fell for the aftershave trick! Such a common war tactic that I walked right into: Create a small bit of destruction to take the attention of the enemy away so that the REAL attack can be carried out. It happens in Iraq all the time. Why should my house be any different?

So I place him firmly, perhaps a little too firmly, on the timeout bench. I proceed to scrape and salvage what aftershave I can off the top of my carpet, you know, because we are poor. And for some reason, aftershave is one of those luxuries that I always forget to buy when Adam is out; so I hate to run out of it. (Don't tell Adam, but I seriously put it back into the bottle.) I then tried to rub the rest of it out. At least it wasn't red aftershave... And now there is just a little part of my bathroom that smells like Adam, which is nice since he has essentially moved into to the dental lab. Good reminder of his presence. So we're good, no big deal.

I walked out prepared to teach my son a lesson about messing with other people's things and how we do not pour out semi liquid substances ANYWHERE in the house (a lesson which, as you will shortly read, he desperately needed to hear.) I had cooled down a bit and I was ready to request an apology, give him a hug, and move on to the rest of our day which included visiting the Ontario Mills mall where the Rainforest Cafe is; he loves to go see the fake animals-and frankly, it is cheaper and easier than the zoo. And I actually love hearing him say, while sobbing in timeout, "I sorry mom!!" So I was ready to do that, smile and get on with it.

Lo and behold, Eli was not sitting on his timeout bench when I emerged from my bedroom. I wasn't necessarily shocked, and the eery silence alerted me that something was definitely amiss. I walked into the kitchen and saw him on the other side of the table with a red sharpie pen. "NOOOOOO!" I screamed only because I saw the potential damage that a red marker could do in the hands of my two year old. Yeah, I totally yelled. He gave me his Calvin and Hobbes smile and ran away from me WITH the red marker in hand. As I sprinted to catch him, I noticed this and this. Yeah. Red freaking marker all over my terracotta tile and white walls.

So while Eli sat in another timeout screaming "Animals? Animals?" I scrubbed my tile with a Scott scrubby and cursed myself for promising an animal trip. At length, the marker came off the tile(so go ahead and turn your kids loose with a red sharpie marker; it's totally fine because it totally scrubs out in a half an hour) and Eli helped me wipe up the soap so I decided we could still go. Mostly because I wanted to walk around in an air conditioned arena and I needed to purchase a wedding gift. We'll have to just paint the wall though.

I didn't laugh at all about this incident until I put Eli in the car to leave and ran back inside to put Duane outside on the patio. Poor Duane and the crap he puts up with to be Eli's friend: Red marker all over his back and face. At that point I was laughing hysterically at the thought of my dog just patiently sitting there while my son red sharpied him. And I haven't quite figured out how to deal with getting that off yet. Actually, it's a really funny reminder of how nutso my child is. So I think I will just leave it and let nature run its course.

And apparently this morning Eli was trying to make up for Duane's now permanent markings by offering him a nice big bowl of milk; and as this story has pretty much run its course, I will just go ahead and let those pictures speak for themselves. I think you get the idea.