Bloody Brilliant

My husband and I both have college degrees. Too bad they're not in child psych. It might have come in handy this weekend.

It's a big weekend for Poops. We're painting his room and converting his crib to a toddler bed. It's going to be cars and trucks, including some of the characters from the movie Cars, of which he has recently discovered a passion for.

So yesterday, we had a brilliant idea. I'd take him to Home Depot to get the paint and get him his own special paint brush so he can help us. Home Depot was having a block party, and there was face painting for kids and I had another brilliant idea, let's get him a special little red car that looked like his favorite Lightning McQueen painted on his hand! This is so much fun! I'm the best mom ever!

Our Home Depot trip took a while but I figured, hey, we're out, let's go to Target and pick up the sheets real quick for his bed oh and hey, Michael's is right there, we'll just run in and grab the paints to paint the road I'm painting on his wall! Brilliant idea! (Man I'm good. Can anyone say "Mom of the year?")

Well, by now we're on our way home and it's about 12:30 (Wow -- where did the time go?!) and we're hungry so we run for the border and swing through Taco Bell (my day off) and head home. (Tacos! How much fun are tacos!! What a treat! I really am a fun and hip mom.)

We walk in the house and in preparation for painting, Poops' entire bedroom is now in the living room.

Well you can just imagine what happened next. You can literally see the panic wash over Poops. Then it starts. The slow cry, followed by the uncontrollable wailing, the can't-breathe-tears-streaming-open-mouth kind. He's running from the living room to his room and back and forth, (my heart is breaking at this point watching this little head in a state of utter panic) wondering what the heck is happening and what he did to deserve this. And because of mommy's brilliant mind, he's overtired (naptime is at 1), starving, he now has red and black paint all over his forehead because he wiped his face with his car-hand, and he's somehow lost his room.

This is not good.

We sit him down to eat tacos (it's crackers with cheese and meat inside! want some applesauce? Here, try mommy's soft taco, yum! OOh this is so good, aren't you hungry?).

But all there is is wailing.

Wanna take a nap?

More wailing.

Wanna watch the Cars?

Wailing. (I'm now developing my own inner panic over how we're gonna get out of this.)

So husband decides to fix up his crib again, put all his "friends" back in and after calming him down a little, he takes him inside to lay down. About an hour later (after more wailing and at least one climb out of the crib) the poor thing tuckers himself out and falls asleep. We get started painting, oh let's see, around 5?

So, as it turns out, our failed experiments are good lessons for everyone else on how not to do things. Lessons learned:

-Do as much preparation in advance, like getting the paint and sheets ON A DIFFERENT DAY!
-If we must have him involved in the process, also include him in moving stuff out of his room so he doesn't FREAK OUT AND GO BALLISTIC. However -- I might recommend having him do an over-nighter at the Grandma's house while you do all of it. (I should be writing this down. Please remind me about this in about two years when we're doing this again for Mini.)
-Finally, the best tip ever: START EARLY. After being well-rested and with full-belly.

Yes, we are the brilliant minds of today. Lessons learned. But it wasn't all bad. He eventually woke up refreshed and did get to help us after all. And so did Mini.So today, we're almost there. We'll hopefully be finished by tonight and I'll publish the grand before and after.

Bloody Brilliant

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2008/05/bloody-brilliant.html