A few days ago, a few bad decisions ended up in a big mess. A painter was supposed to be coming in to paint in the upstairs hallway. Nobody was going to be home, so I set the paint can on the stairs where the painter would see it, and took down Julia's safety gate so he wouldn't have to bother with taking it down. When the kids and I got home, I could tell that he had not been to the house, yet. I took of Julia's coat and shoes and let her go on her way while I took of Johanna's coat and shoes. I was on my way to put the gate back up on the stairs when I came around the corner to find Julia sitting in a pool of green paint. AAHH! The lid did not get put back on the paint can tightly, and she managed to get it off and spill half a can of paint. I stood for a moment, in shock, before I set up the paint can, grabbed Julia, took off her now paint covered pants, asked Grant to get some old towels, and sat looking at the mess wondering where to start. Grant had to try and keep Julia away, but the whole time she was screaming and crying because she felt that she needed to be right next to me in the paint. I sopped up the paint with the towels and tried to scrape as much of it as I could back into the can. In the process, I managed to get paint on my favorite pair of jeans (I was wearing them at the time). I will admit that there was more than a few tears shed. I probably did not show the best example to the kids of how to act in such a situation, but after I recovered a little bit we talked about how it was just "stuff", nobody got hurt, and there is nothing we can do about it now. We were planning on getting new carpet within the next couple of years. I think we will be getting it sooner rather than later.
