Welcome to another addition of Finish the Sentence Friday, where a bunch of bloggers get together and finish the same sentence in many different ways. This week’s topic is, “I know my child would rather I not reveal this but…”
I have three children, but I think the child who suffers the most from having a mother who blogs their lives all over the internet is my Gabrielle. She is my oldest child, and I know my child would rather I not reveal this, but Gabby is on the autism spectrum, and had a fascination for drawing on the walls.
It all started when she was a baby. We’d often walk into her bedroom to find her in her crib, with her diaper off, and scribbles drawn on the walls from the poop. It was the worst thing to walk into because as a mother, you imagine that she probably stuck her fingers in her mouth at some point during this escapade she engulfed in the 15 minutes you left her alone to go take your dump in the toilet where it belongs. But also, it meant you had to cancel all your plans for that moment, drop everything, and clean one helluva mess. Some things, you can let stew, like the slow cooker with pork’s leftovers can sit for a day or two before it gets to levels of disgust that force you into scrubbing your heaviest dish. But baby poop covering the walls and crib and the baby? Nope. That’s a right now situation. Alarm Red. Mop 4. The baby has launched biological warfare against her parents.
As she grew older, she stopped using poop. At first it was crayons. Then her addiction slowly grew worse. Chalk. Markers. Pencils. Pens. Lipstick. Mascara. Deodorant. Preparation H. Toothpaste. …
To make it worse, some of the things she drew is beautiful, if it were on a canvas with paint and not my walls with hemorrhoid cream.
I spent most of her life scrubbing walls. Mr. Clean Magic Erasers became my new best friend. They took care of everything for the most part, especially on walls that had a gloss in the paint. When we moved to the apartment we live in now, things changed. The paint this guy uses has no gloss to it whatsoever. It’s like he powdered the walls instead of painted them, and it was just one coat. He hasn’t repainted this apartment ever, and I can vouch because I was down to the dry wall only with 3 scrubs. Here, because there is no gloss, the Magic Eraser is awesome for SOME things. Other things, not so much. What wouldn’t get clean on gloss with bleach would in matte world.
I loved it when people would visit, and one of the first questions out of their mouth was, “Why would you let your child draw on the walls?” Ok asshole. First off, I don’t “let” my child draw on the walls. Do you really think I’m stupid? Do you really think I’m crazy? Do you really think I WANT this shit on my walls? Second, I resent the “bad parenting” remark lurking underneath those words. Do you really think you are the superior parent because your kid doesn’t draw on the walls? That’s a luck of the draw, not a skill set. But if it helps you sleep at night on a bed on a pedestal above all us regular people, then enjoy the bliss of your ignorance. By all means, drown in that fucking bliss.
I learned early on cleaning it only provided a blank canvas for more art. The child looked at a clean wall like I just erased the chalk board for her. Now, the apartment walls are, well half and half. In the rooms people come and go, like the Living Room, Dining Room and Kitchen, the walls are clean for the most part, but in the rooms like the children’s bed room, my bed room, and my bathroom, the walls are covered in various artwork.
Gabby is now also 7 years old and obviously doesn’t remember painting the walls at all because she just recently asked me, to bring this full circle, “Why did you let my sisters draw all over the walls? You need to clean these walls.”
For more funny parenting stories, check out the rest of my blog under Parenting and Motherhood (Found under June Cleaver).
For more Finish the Sentence Friday posts, check out Anna’s Blog.
I also totally forgot today is also Fly on the Wall Day… so what it’s like to be a fly on the wall at my house?
1. My house is trashed. It looks like a demon came in and took a dump, and that summoned more demons to do the same. My only inspiration to cleaning it is to find my basket of winter scented wax melts.
2. My gas tank cost 33.00 to fill up, and I didn’t know this until now.
3. I found a huge honker spider the size of my hand and decided that one was a man’s job. This is the first spider I ever encountered that became a man’s job on account the other one I ran into of that size was intelligent enough to voluntarily walk into the mason jar to be transferred to a nearby creek.
4. We missed church between my inability to schedule myself off the computer and the kids’ inability to listen.
5. I’m going to be in a book called Clash of the Couples. You should check out my link to it on my right of the blog or the header, “I’m going to be in a book!”
6. The book Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness is available for sale, and I’m in that one too.
7. I switched my blog from blogger to wordpress, and that’s why it’s sexy now.
8. The kids were on time for school today. That is the only day in the last week they were on time. I hate schedules, but I’m trying.
9. The secretary at the school who hated me said hi to me with a sincere smile on her face. That was an amazing feeling. I even thanked her for it.
10. I’m still crazy talking to the walls, including Facebook’s, but my shrink upped my meds so we shall see if I get focused this month or not.
Buzz around, see what you think, then click on these links for a peek into some other homes:
http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado
http://www.therowdybaker.com The Rowdy Baker
http://www.justalittlenutty.com/ Just A Little Nutty
http://themomisodes.com The Momisodes
http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade
http://thesadderbutwisergirl.com The Sadder But Wiser Girl
http://followmehome.shellybean.com Follow me home
http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools
http://www.menopausalmom.com/ Menopausal Mother
http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Battered Hope
http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy
http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius
http://www.crumpetsandbollocks.com Crumpets and Bollocks
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