I Hate Fingernail Polish

So, I bought fingernail polish a few weeks ago in an effort to give the kids a resource here to be creative with. Well, the inevitable happened and now all the polish is put up high and away where even I can't reach it in the tip top of the closet, and I don't want to see them again while we're here.

I always have good intentions when I buy polish, paints, or markers. But it's just a matter of time before I'm cursing them. It usually beings with someone who is too young (currently Abi) asking if she can paint her nails over and over again, followed by me finally giving in to her nagging (teaching her a good lesson there) and giving her strict instructions to keep the polish hidden from her little sisters as if her life depended on it. And this is always followed by the inevitable event of an even smaller sibling finding the polish or markers or whatever and making a mess. A past experience I should have learned by: Permanent Marker drawings on the carpet by Lily after Mel left them out. This photo posted on a friend's facebook yesterday might also have been an omen for me...

Today, the kids were bored. We broke out our list we made a few weeks ago of things to do when they're bored. Wesley decided to do a store. They started making mail boxes and money, Abi wanted to have a paint rocks store. NO. I don't want the paints out all day. You can paint some and then sell them, but we're not having them out all the time. I give her permission to take the polish.

The kids do their thing and entertain themselves pretty well. I make lunch. After cleaning it up, I go into my bedroom where I find the one year old on my bed, which now wish I hadn't made this morning, cause that might have spared the new nice blanket if it was in a pile on Corey's side of the bed. But no, the blanket was nicely laid and spread out over the whole bed, making sure there was lots of surface area out in the open and vulnerable. If I hadn't made the bed, maybe it would have just gotten the sheets, which I totally wouldn't have minded. They are old sheets that I'm willing to leave behind if needed when we pack for home. Anyway, the bed was made, the polish was left on the bed, Natalie got on the bed and proceeded to paint her toes, painting her hands, legs, pants, a toy horse, and our blanket in the process.

"ABI!!! I'm mad at you!!!" I yelled. The kids could all hear the "Mom's ticked" tone in my voice and all rushed in to my room to see what had transpired. Uh oh. Abi said she had put it away. Natalie couldn't have reached it if she had, Lily said she hadn't gotten it down. So we'll never know who bears full responsibility, but I guess I should. I should have known better than to buy fingernail polish in the first place. I should have known better than to let little girls use it. Sigh.

So I pull off the blanket and drag it over to our bathroom sink and do my best to squeeze and rinse out any polish. I get my hands and wrists all red in the process. Most of it has washed off my hands now from their several washings during the day.

Natalie has red polish on her legs, which blends nicely with the blue sparkly polish she has on there and her face from the mess she made with Abi yesterday. Oh my lovely little toddler.

I bought this blanket recently at Sam's Club, cause it's starting to get chilly here and Corey needs to stay warm. I brought as many blankets as I could in our 18 pieces of checked baggage, knowing it would get cold near the end of our trip. But I had to bring pillows and sheets and kitchen utensils and plates and everything else for our family at that time cause this house is not furnished (our friends supplied us with mattresses though, very grateful) but no big blankets made it, just fleece ones. Corey has a bit of a "weak constitution" - he lacks the ability to fight off cold weather without falling ill. He often catches a cold if he goes out in the winter air without a hat on.

Anyway, so I saw nice and decently priced blankets at Sam's Club, cause they retailers are breaking out the winter season stuff, I bought one that I thought was pretty, with visions of taking it home with us as a physical reminder of this time in Brazil. And as I tried to clean out the red fingernail polish, the angel on my shoulder who was trying to help me calm down told me it can still be a reminder of our trip. And now it comes with a bonus reminder of when Abi and Natalie were little kids and made messes with fingernail polish. I had thought we'd use it in our bedroom, but it's a queen, probably won't fit anyway. It is still perfectly useful though and will keep kids warm as they watch movies on date night and can be draped over the couch or something. Just fold it with the red blotches folded inside the blanket or tucked under.

There's a crack in everything anyway (or fingernail polish on it...)

Ring the bells that still can ring 

Forget your perfect offering 

There is a crack in everything 

That's how the light gets in.

Anthem by Leonard Cohen