Yesterday, I made a bad decision as a mother. JT found a bottle of brown nail polish in the bathroom cupboard. She was thrilled about it. I tried to trade it away from her with her toothbrush, but she was pretty insistent on keeping the nail polish. I thought to myself, "She can't get it open, she can't choke on it, she's loving carrying it around, so why not let her keep holding it?" So I did.
Big Mistake.
After about an hour of holding/playing/holding-some-more with the bottle of nail polish, she followed me into the kitchen. The kitchen has nice big tiles as the flooring. She slipped (as she often still does) when changing floor surfaces from wood to tile and fell, catching herself with her hands. Except one hand was clutching the nail polish bottle. Yes. You guessed it. It shattered.
She started screaming and I stood in shock for about 1.5 seconds. My brain was going nuts as fast as possible trying to figure out what the best way would be to even begin to clean this up. We're talking nail polish here. NAIL POLISH! Not water soluble. Even though it seemed like not the best idea, it was the only idea I had, so I scooped her up hurriedly and shoved her hands under the sink. She screamed all the more, and as you can guess, the nail polish didn't really come off at all. Instead, with her flailing hands it was also getting all over my shirt, her new PJ's, and the kitchen sink. Somehow I gathered the presence of mind to strip her and take a picture. Seriously can't quite remember all that was going on.
New PJ's. Ruined. :( But she will still wear them. For a long long time.
Not pictured here: paint on tile, paint on my shirt, paint on my hands, paint on the faucet and in the sink, paint on bins sitting near site of the accident.
For the rest of the day she looked like she was trying to have some brown skin. Can you see it all the way past her wrist on her forearm there?
Pretty much it ruined my morning. Not so much because my nail polish was gone, or the new PJ's were ruined, but because this was a dumb accident that could have been easily avoided if I hadn't had a bad mothering moment and talked my way out of taking the nail polish away from her. I had to run to the store to get some acetone so I could clean the floor and sink. I tried to blot out the stain on the PJ's, but to no avail. What a stressful and disappointing morning. But hey--at least I can say I won't let that bad mothering moment happen again! Right?
Love, Brown-painted hands Kk
Welcome to the club!
ReplyDeleteNo! Kallene! That is absolutely NOT a bad mothering moment. My girls have played with nail polish tons of times! And, it's just nail polish. This will be a great story to tell someday. In fact, from my perspective with a 6 1/2 year old and an almost 5 year old daughter, they would love to listen to this story about themselves already. In fact, they would insist on it. Over and over. Just hold her until she stops crying. All will be well. I promise.
ReplyDeleteWow! Now that's perspective Sally! Because...I guess when you put it that way, I was the same way, and maybe still am. If my mom could sit and tell stories about when we were little, I would love to hear it. Thank you for the new and improved perspective. Makes me not feel so terrible.
ReplyDeleteI feel bad for you, but definitely take Sally's advice.
ReplyDelete