Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Slime in the Ceiling

So, Dalan's birthday was this month. He got the coolest present ever! It was red slime that came in a blood donation bag. How awesomely gross!  9 year-old boys are easy to please; just give them something that grosses everyone else out and they love it.
All is well until he and his sister (who loves gross things too) are dissecting it at the kitchen table and mom steps out of the room for 1 minute. ONE minute!

I hear banging around in the kitchen and run back in. Low and behold, Dalan is attempting to mop the ceiling?! What?

"Aunalee threw her slime on the ceiling and I was trying to get it off." comes the half-story from Dalan.
"You did it too, Dalan!" comes the rebuttal from Aunalee, ensuring the blame is shared. She walks over to the stairway and points to the ceiling. "That is what Dalan did."
"Yeah, but mine came off, mostly."

I look and sure enough, there are some nice red rings on the ceiling where his slime had been splattered.
Aunalee's mess was much worse as Dalan's frightful attempt to clean it was actually smearing it everywhere.
In my jaw clenched, kind voice, "I don't know why when mom leaves the room you think all of the rules are void and that you can trash my house. . .lecture . . . lecture . . .lecture . . . "                     
Summary of the discipline, they are too short to clean up the mess and I am not patient enough to wait until they are tall enough. Slime goes in the garbage and they clean up what is on the floor and table. I have to attempt what is on the ceiling.

Sweet, creative Aunalee replies, "We could just paint the ceiling red. That would be cool."
This is a comment where my heart is laughing and my demeanor stays firm. This is extremely difficult to master, so I am told. I'm still working on it.

As for the ceiling, magic eraser only spreads the mess and turns everything pink. It would have worked if I had bought 4 more boxes. The scrub brush only made my arm hurt. Simple Green along with whatever other cleaners I had in the cupboard didn't do a thing either except make the area smell nice and chemically.

My super-heroin friend, Jen came to the rescue. She brought over a gallon of blue windshield washer fluid. This combined with the magic eraser worked, um, magic! It got the slime off without spreading the mess! Yea for super-heroes!

3 comments:

WX Ences said...

Nice...a child's creativity knows no bounds.

Jen Jenkins said...

I wouldn't call it being a super hero-I would call it doing everything in my power to make up for your wonderful child having the slime in the first place.
Next time I will know to NEVER buy slime (especially red blood slime) for someone's birthday present-no matter how bad my child begs!!!!!

You're awesome lady! I'm so lucky to have you as my friend.

Gene and RaNae said...

Jen should be a Heloise....nice idea..windshield wiper fluid...who would have thought to use that?

Fun story and it will be a fun memory...someday.

Keep up the good and patient work that you do as a mom...love you.