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Anthony at Large

Anthony at Large

Photo on 6-21-12 at 12.31 PM

Anthony is a new experience for us. Sure all of our kids went through that testing-boundaries toddler phase. But Anthony somehow takes it to a whole new level. He is very, very curious. Very physically able—he’s quite adept at climbing and manipulating objects. And he just seems to have a nose for mischief. We can’t seem to keep up with him. I feel bad because I get so frustrated and angry and he really doesn’t intend ill at all. He’s just a little boy who is trying to figure out the world. And sometimes he is just so adorable we have to laugh. But today took the cake.

Dom was about to get into the shower. I was brushing my hair in my room, having just finished a Facetime chat with my sister and my mom—lots of clowning from the kids, not much real conversation; but then that’s life with little ones. I looked up and saw Anthony coming toward me down the hall with very white hands and a white foot. I jumped up, groaning, and suppressing some choice cuss words as I hollered to Dom in the bathroom: “Anthony got into the Desitin. It’s all over his hands and feet. I need to get him in the tub.” So Dom came hurrying out and I rushed Anthony into the tub and began to scrub. And I was just beginning to be bewildered at how dry the substance on his hands was when Dom yelled to me from Anthony’s bedroom: “It’s not Desitin. It’s the paint!” I don’t know how I kept down the swearing at that point. I left Anthony standing in the tub and went to the bedroom to help my bewildered husband. There on the carpet was the overturned gallon can of paint that my dad had bought, planning to paint Anthony’s room for us on Monday, spreading in a big pool under the changing table and lapping at one of Ben’s favorite puzzles.

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When you see a disaster your mind just stops processing. It took a minute and then I told Dom to pick up the paint can which was still leaking paint. We didn’t even know where to start cleaning all that paint off of carpet. I went back to cleaning the paint off the toddler while Dom tried to do some damage control. I suggested getting out the painting tarp and putting all the paint covered objects onto it. Then once Anthony was cleaned up I locked him in the other bedroom with Bella, Sophie and Ben and went to help with the clean up. We sopped up the puddle of paint with shop rags and then wiped down the furniture. We decided to just focus on getting the carpet dry, not trying to get the paint out of it. I think that with that volume of paint the carpet is just a loss. Anthony took his nap on our bed while we had a fan pointed at the carpet, trying to get it dry on a very wet and rainy Saturday.

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1 comment
  • I recommend the Planet Earth episode “Ice Worlds.”  My kids enjoy the Planet Earth series, and I seem to remember that there is less anthropomorphizing in it than in March of the Penguins.  The penguins also figure in the inreoductory episode, “From Pole to Pole,” and one of the two episodes has a feature at the end which shows the crew getting footage of the penguins.  The other episode I think has footage of the crew getting shots of the polar bears, which was also exciting.  I will say that there are some prey/predator scenes, so if that troubles your kids you would want to preview it.

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