The Crime Scene

The evidence was everywhere. The suspect was covered in head to toe, well sort of. Trails all over the place. This was one crime scene I was seriously dreading cleaning up.
Date: August 12, 2011
Time: 5pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio. Our house.

Landon has been doing good the past couple of days. I started a new calm approach, where every time he started acting up, I completely ignored him. If he didn't want the food I fixed, that's fine, he could get down and play and if he was hungry, he could eat that. If he couldn't share with his sister, that's ok, he would just be removed from that toy alltogether. This has been working pretty well.

Today, I played with the kids outside for about an hour, getting them nice and worn out for their nap at 3. Tucked Landon in, settled in on the couch with Nevaeh. She passed right out, I heard Landon talking to himself and then was quiet, so I drifted off to catch up on my severe lack of sleep.
Around 4pm I heard the toilet lid upstairs. No big deal, he knows how to go potty. I heard him jump back into bed and then he was quiet, so I drifted back off to sleep.
5pm came around and a plane flew low overhead (we live near an airport) and heard an excited gasp followed by the blinds being pushed out of the way upstairs. He was awake, right around when he usually got up, and Nevaeh was smacking me in the face anyway so I got up, went to the bottom of the stairs, and told Landon he could come downstairs.
He came down the stairs...rounded the corner...butt naked. Slippery??? I knew immediately that he had fooled me. While I snoozed on the couch with Nevaeh, convinced he was snoozing upstairs like usual, he was in fact committing a three year old crime. One that he has never even come close to doing, so I was caught completely off guard.
Vas. A. Line. Usually one word, but this was too big an incident. For this, it has to be three words. Three terrible words for a very ornery three year old. Vas. A. Line.
On his bed. Under his bed. On the wall by his bed. On the blinds and window screen (Remember the airplane?) On the cabinet. Under the sink. On the toilet and toilet seat. On the diaper pail. In the bathtub. On the door handle. On the bathroom tile. On the step stool. On the carpet. Along the rail of Nevaeh's crib. On a variety of toys. On the TV. On the toilet paper. On Landon.
He was like a greased pig. A butt naked, slippery greased pig. Head to toe and in between. I think he want to spike his mohawk because it was caked in his hair. The tub of Vas. A. Line had only had my finger swiped through it a couple times when Vae had a dry nose, so it was basically full. When I found the tub, it was under Landon's bed. Empty. EMPTY.
For a good couple minutes I just stared, taking in the greasy, goopy mess. Nevaeh had pooped so she stunk, and I couldn't set her down or she'd be a greasy piglet as well. Landon was standing there butt naked with his hands held up, clearly no longer enjoying being covered in the once fascinating goop. Running a bath was the only logical way to clean him up. Bed sheets off, scrubbed what I could out of the carpet. He did the rest.

That was his punishment, cleaning it up, because I didn't really know what else to do. Obviously I couldn't send him to his room. I followed behind and pointed to everything he needed to wipe off with his already vaseline'd bedsheet and pillow case. I couldn't even really be mad at him. I was more than upset that he got into the cabinet that he knew he shouldn't get into (And that I didn't think he could reach). I was upset that out of all the things he could grab, he had to grab vaseline. I was upset that he had to touch everything in a 12x12 radius, but I couldn't be mad at him. What three year old boy can resist slimy, squishy, messy goop?

His second punishment is this blog. I am writing this blog and saving it forever, and anxiously awaiting the day he has a girlfriend and brings her over to our house and I sit down to have a lovely little chat with her :-)

I'll laugh about this later :-)