Missing the Obvious: I’m Back for More & Oh, Joy! There Are Two Parts!

100_2455There’s nothing like motherhood to illuminate your incompetencies and to remind you of the high likelihood that at any given time, strange substances might become affixed to your personage or your offspring’s personage.

Here’s how my latest reminder went down. One morning recently, I took the small people to school and then went to talk to one of their teachers. As I was leaving, I noticed something on my younger son’s face as he stood outside his classroom. I still have no clue what it was, but it looked rather like peach baby food. To my knowledge, he doesn’t have a baby food source/dealer, so I don’t know what the food-like substance actually was. From a distance, it was hardly noticeable as the color didn’t contrast sharply with his skin. But up close, it was obvious and definitely textured.

On my word, I asked him to go to the nearby restroom to wash off the food-like substance, and with my own eyes, I watched him walk toward the restroom before I turned and left.

Fancy how I freaked out I was my surprise, then, when at home later that afternoon, I noticed that the food-like substance was still on his face. Naturally, he claimed that he had washed the food-like substance off his face when I asked, despite the fact that the food-like substance was still clearly on his face.

It was one of those really fruitful conversations that makes you seriously contemplate the possibility of your own insanity. Since we are on the subject of insanity, you know about Einstein’s definition of insanity, right? The whole thing about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Yup, I did it, with full knowledge of the aforementioned definition.

Sighing as only a mother can, I asked him to wash it off again and, as I left the room, with my own eyes I watched him walk toward the powder room.

I don’t remember what I did the rest of that day, but it was something where I left the small people under LCB’s supervision (an idea still in its conceptual stage) and didn’t return until after they were in bed.

To make a long story short, the next morning was a flurry of activity (with yours truly stumbling half awake through most of it) and so it was that after school as I loaded the small people into the minivan, I noticed that the food-like substance from yesteryear was still on my son’s face. It’s important to note here that my son showers every morning before school, so either the food-like substance survived at least one shower or my son has been fake-showering. It’s disturbing to contemplate this.

And, in case you are slow on the uptake, that means my son went to school for two full days with a food-like substance on his face.

Specifically, he went to school with the same food-like substance on his face both days. 

As it turns out, however, the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, because I think I’ve now one-upped him.

4 Replies to “Missing the Obvious: I’m Back for More & Oh, Joy! There Are Two Parts!”

  1. HaHa! I’m glad I am not the only one whose kids do things like that!!!

    1. Feel free to share, because I can use any moral support I can get! 🙂

  2. Well, if it helps, the peachy stuff on my kids’ faces only comes off on Saturday nights, when they get baths for church on Sunday. Unless it’s the summer and then it might come off in the sprinkler. Or it’ll be there until Saturday night.

    1. Ah, yes, the pre-church hygiene routine, where we all attempt to look way more repectable than we actually are. And that is the advantage of summer. I can’t tell you how tempted I am to bring out a bottle of shampoo when the kids are in the ocean and just call it a day. In fact, we’re hoping to go camping (pray for me) by the ocean next month, and that’s basically my hygiene plan, not being a fan of public showers.

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